Facebook: Business or Pleasure?

I had an interesting conversation about the uses of Facebook with a professor here at the Haas School of Business of UC Berkeley today.  The conversation began by my asking him if he had ever seen or used Facebook.  To my surprise he did.  In fact, he was using Facebook to go paperless and provide him with a better way to connect with his current students.

Ordinarily this professor asks his students to create a "face card" (a 3"x5" card with your name, picture, etc) so that he can better learn the names and traits of his students.  But Facebook created an opportunity for him to digitize all of this.

After he created his account and invited all of his students to be his friends a group discussion broke out in a class group.  A few things were said that some students and the professor thought were funny, but others did not.  This led to a student reporting the incident to the administration.  The professor immediately took down his account and went back to "face cards".

So what is the point of all of this? Is Facebook intended for business or pleasure?  Or perhaps a better question would be: do Facebook users feel comfortable using their Facebook accounts for business, pleasure, or both?

In my opinion, the majority of people would feel uncomfortable using it for both; its either one or the other.  For people in my demographic, Facebook is about expressing yourself to your friends and cohort in a fun and cheery way.  Most don't want to share themselves this way to their boss, colleagues, or professors. 

Here's the reason: people have multiple personalities.  A quick test: When your best friend calls, what is the conversation like?  When a grandparent calls, what is the conversation like?  Odds are, they are different.  This is normal.

One fix to this is to manage multiple Facebook identities or accounts.  I doubt many will actually adopt this practice.

Another example when Facebook mixes business with pleasure is with recruiters browsing your Facebook profile and seeing you passed out in a pool of your own vomit (oops!) or standing next to a rather impressive "beeryamid".  You can say goodbye to that internship with Goldman Sachs.

And for my final point: will Facebook applications developed for business or professional use catch on? Or even serious things like taking your social network with you across the web and onto other pages (SeenThis?).  My belief: nay.

Facebook is for fun and pleasure.  This is where you go to relax, socialize, connect, and have a few laughs.