After yesterday's post I have been thinking a bit more about BeKnown. It’s not that I think it’s rubbish; I actually think it’s quite clever. What I think has been making me grumpy about it is that I think it’s a wasted opportunity. It’s like having your hair done, buying new frock and looking really amazing just to spend the evening staying in with your parents. It’s cool technology on a enormously utilised platform BUT it’s just for one job board.
It would be brilliant if you could use BeKnown to locate jobs from ALL the job boards and ALL the corporate sites; I wish Indeed had invented it. But they didn’t (don’t get me wrong – I like Monster BTW).
I was having a mini rant to Stephen O’Donnell earlier when he came up with the real brainwave (as Indeed can’t invent something already invented)… why don’t Monster integrate with all the other job boards and corporates and use BeKnown as a gateway to the world of work. See, genius!!
Thanks Lou. I do think that whilst it would be a very brave move, allowing all job boards to have their vacancies displayed on BeKnown would be a great move.
As I’ve said before, most of the major job boards plan for the day when they have successfully beaten off the others, and become the only serious player in the market. This would be brilliant for candidates, and maybe even for advertisers too. I think some of the benefits of this could be achieved by every single vacancy being accessible via Facebook, and not just those from one website.
Interesting development reported by Techcrunch on Friday – LinkedIn Cuts Off API Access To BranchOut, Monster’s BeKnown And Others For TOS Violations http://tcrn.ch/kUT4jt
Not at all surprising…
Lets face it, the Internet is made for sharing. Isn’t that lovely.
Well apparently it is made for sharing… unless money is involved. AND money IS involved.
Neither Linkedin or Facebook want you to export any of YOUR contacts or information that’s on their sites.
Simply, this is because YOU are worth money. I am of course presuming that you are listed on these websites? If not heaven forbid, you must be an un-connected Luddite or something. Certainly not a normal type of person at all…. for person you could read sheep… bah, bah, bah 🙂
Basically these guys say it’s THEIR data. i.e. they own YOU. Well it turns out we all ticked that little box when we signed up and that’s what it said… you did read that small print didn’t you? (Hmmm… I wonder if lawyers even read it?)
Personally I thought I was “free man” especially after “The Prisoner” series finished on TV and the year “1984” went by. It turns out now that I am just a number after all.
What sort of number? I’m a number that relates to the valuation of THEIR business, either post IPO or even pre IPO (Facebook experts say I’m going to help them value their business at 100 billion dollars and for LinkedIn I’ve already helped them earn 9 billion dollars… why oh why I’m such a good guy).
If Monster’s BeKnown or the new Google+ Circles is that good then I guess I have just got to do a lot of copy and pasting. It seems no one wants to make things easy for me…. ho hum! I guess this time though I’ll just have to think first to see if it’s worth it, that is before the next “big thing” comes along and I’ll have to maybe do it all again.
So Monster… is your BeKnown thing really worth my effort?
Thinks… If we all end up spending all our lives on the internet then I guess we’ll end up disappearing like the dinosaurs did. On the other hand if we really worked together and everyone shared everything then who knows what the world would be like…
Well Tweet me! That’s a thought.