BranchOut vs BeKnown – First Impressions on Facebook’s Career Apps
It’s been about a week that I am fiddling with Facebook’s main career apps – BranchOut and BeKnown – and while I believe it is generally a good idea to use both, I think a favorite is emerging already.
Below is a side-by-side comparison of the two apps, with the observations I could gather in a relatively short time. I’m sure both apps will go through rapid changes and hopefully improvements, and it will be interesting to come back in several months time to see what has changed. Until then…
BranchOut vs BeKnown Comparison Table
| BranchOut | BeKnown | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| - belongs to start-up BranchOut | - belongs to established Monster | ||
| + | friends are automatically added as they start using the app (gain in networking speed); | friends must be invited one by one (gain in quality of network); | + |
| + | plenty of updates from friends of friends and extended network; | slightly more aerated and uncluttered design; | + |
| + | endorsements appear to be prioritized | Monster resume import; | + |
| - | looks quite patchy and not well integrated in the Facebook design | same patchy feel like BranchOut | - |
| - | badges of honor come across as a very silly feature | again, badges, though a bit toned down than the BranchOut one | - |
| - | a very strange count of one's friends within the app (a friend of mine is shown with 29k when he only has 338) | ||
| - | childish wording of app updates, such as "x joined your empire on BranchOut" | ||
| - | facilitates wall spam |
Long story short, I favor BeKnown for the time being, despite coming second to the career apps table. Overall, it seems to be better put together, more visually appealing, and less prone to spam my wall (or make me inadvertently spam others).
Last but not least, while I generally dislike badges of any kind, BeKnown’s badges have something to do with “careers”.
Instead, BranchOut’s badges – called “of honor”, mind you – include masterpieces as “Smokin’ Hot” (WTF?), “Marketing Guru” (puked in my mouth a little), “Totally Rocks” (if you are unable to think of a specific praise for someone yet to wish to kiss their posterior, send them a generic badge like this), and… “Best Dressed“. Highly professional indeed. Oh, I nearly forgot the “Best Manager” badge, which seems to me so opportunistic that even Dwight Schrute would think twice before using it!