• TechCrunch, Monday, October 15, 2007 11:15 AM

Facebook continues to pile on the press coverage, getting credit this time for stealing working professionals from the professional networking site LinkedIn. But it shouldn't. The Web's No. 2 social site is perfect for college dorm networking, but not so much for job or business development hunting. LinkedIn allows workers to delve into an extended network of contacts developed around the people you know. With Facebook, you can only see your friends' friends.

In other words, friend grouping has become a problem for the social network that one time only allowed college students to join. Some people may not want work colleagues to see their extended personal profiles, which might contain pictures of them getting drunk, for example.

Recognizing this, Facebook is set to introduce a new friend grouping feature that allows users to filter profile information for certain sets of contacts. The company is now planning a new data stream for the concept of "Networking." Currently, users can only choose between Friendship, A Relationship, Dating, Random Play and Whatever I Can Get as their reason for being on Facebook. As the report says, a lot of new functionality could be created around networking, including a network graph that goes a lot deeper than one level of friends. It could also link people who belong to the same industry.

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