I wondered how long it would be before business class applications ended up on Facebook. Less than a couple of weeks after I first mooted the idea, Zoho Office is integrated to Facebook. Good for them. It is a very neat integration, showing me all the files I have created in Zoho alongside bringing up links for the application suite. I was sufficiently impressed to invite all those in my network to add this application to their Facebook implementations. Some will hate me for polluting their messages, others will be curious and yet others will find utility.
Zoli Erdos still doesn’t quite get Facebook and another colleague, Charlie Wood has left a Facebook note saying he’s having reservations. Perhaps that’s indicative of the shortening attention spans ‘we’ have. Perhaps it’s inertia from the use of existing applications. Perhaps its because there are just so many services coming online that its overwhelming. I don’t know. What I can say is that I like the way my business and personal lives can be safely co-mingled without there being too much blurring.
So for example when I found out via Facebook that a person I’ve not seen for a while is in London at the same time as myself, it was only natural to exchange messages and arrange a meet up. I would not have known about that unless the person had chosen to email me, or as in this case, left a note I can see.
As I’ve said before, this is all version 1.0 stuff so there’s a long way to go before it settles down. Even so, it’s hard not to be impressed by the speed at which developers are moving. And as Zoli says:
it’s a huge distribution channel for Zoho: discount or not, college students are not exactly known to shell out dollars for software, including MS Office, they live in a wired environment and tend to be online and collaborate a lot. Whether Facebook becomes a “businessy” network or not, just for the student market alone this was a smart move on Zoho’s part.
I would conclude: – this generation of students are the workforce and decision makers of tomorrow. Is it likely that having come through a period where they are able to collaborate in this simple yet rich manner they’ll simply abandon these applications in favour of something else? I find that hard to believe.
