Facebook is Costly for Australia

Facebook has grown in popularity in Australia over the past several months, according to Hitwise. By the end of July, Facebook was one of the top 20 sites visited by Aussies across every category. This is great news for Facebook, which is expected to rake in $100 million in revenue this year, but this is horrible news for businesses in Australia, which should expect to lose anywhere between $4 billion and more than $5 billion this year, according to Web security company SurfControl.

This cost to Australian businesses stems, of course, from the decreased productivity of its employees, who are spending more and more time on Facebook and other social networking sites while they are in the office.

If a single employee spends an hour each day on Facebook, it could cost his/her employer in excess of $6,200 each year. This figure, when compounded across the total number of businesses, could very well equal to a loss of more than $5 billion each year for the economy of Australia.

SurfControl noted that there is a rise in the number of "underground intranets," a euphemism for slackers who do nothing while at their jobs.

While these figures are focused on Australia, the implications are very tangible for the U.S. Companies in the states have already begun blocking these social networking sites, and the U.S. military even took that stance on a number of these sites earlier this summer.

A spokeswoman at SurfControl noted that Australia is fifth, just behind the U.S., in terms of global Facebook users, and that this probably means the problem is even larger stateside.

Law firm Allen & Overy tried blocking their employees from Facebook earlier in the year, but were met with a retort that the social networking site was important for business purposes. Allen & Overy drew back its banning of Facebook.

Sources:

http://redherring.com/Home/22607

http://www.informationweek.com/software/showArticle.
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