LinkedIn vs. Facebook (NYT Bits Blog)

Fun post from Saul Hansell (NYT) about facebook and LinkedIn as social networking sites for adults. I agree with Hansell about facebook's ease of use, but LinkedIn seems to be gaining a lot of traction with professionals.

June 27, 2007, 7:13 pm

DealBook: Is LinkedIn Getting Ready for an I.P.O.?

By Saul Hansell

....snip...

I have had many people request I connect with them on LinkedIn, but I have never found the service to be of much use. People I know who are more deal doers seem to swear by it. Facebook, which has become the rage in Silicon Valley over the last two months, seems both easier to use, more useful, and — most importantly — more interesting to look at. ...snip...

That said, Facebook needs to rewrite its interface for grownups. It gives you various options to describe how you met someone: such as “went to school together,” “from an organization or team,” and “from a summer/study abroad program.” It doesn’t have the sorts of ways that adults meet: “crashed our strollers into each other at the playground,” “trying to get a drink at a trade show,” or “in the waiting room of Divorce Court.”

But I’ll bet it will be easier for Facebook to get serious than for LinkedIn to get interesting.

Branches of Government on the web

If websites reflect organizational structures, the Executive Branch webmasters aren't doing much to bolster Dick Cheney's argument that the Vice President is not part of the Executive Branch. The main navigation for whitehouse.gov site is as follows:

President | Vice President | First Lady | Mrs. Cheney | News

The VP is also pictured as a cabinet-rank member of the Executive Branch at http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/cabinet.html

The Senate webmasters are taking care of business and staking out ground in this debate:
==
http://senate.gov/

The President of the Senate's Role in the Legislative Process

Have you ever watched the Senate during a very close vote? If so, you may have seen the vice president sitting or standing at the presiding officer's desk on the Senate Floor. Other than to succeed to the presidency upon the death or resignation of a president, a vice president's only constitutional duty is to preside over the Senate. Vice presidents cannot vote in the Senate, except to break a tie, nor may they formally address the Senate, except with the senators' permission. Initially vice presidents appointed senators to standing committees, regulated access to the galleries and supervised the keeping of the Senate Journal, but these duties were later removed.

During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries the vice president's role has evolved into more of an executive branch position, and is usually seen as an integral part of a president's administration. He presides over the Senate only on ceremonial occasions or when a tie-breaking vote may be needed.

When the vice president is absent, the president pro tempore presides over the Senate. Junior senators fill in as presiding officer when neither the vice president nor president pro tempore is on the Senate Floor.

To learn more about the vice president, president pro tempore, and other Senate leaders and officers visit the Virtual Reference Desk.

Archivist-Heroes vs. VP Dick Cheney (Maureen Dowd)

" Archivists are the new macho heroes of Washington."

Delightedfully wicked NYT columnist Maureen Dowd reached this conclusion in her June 24, 2007 column about Vice-President Dick Cheney's refusal to cooperate with the National Archives's records management/audit procedures. The argument is that the Office of the Vice-President isn't part of the Executive Branch. Really?