On one end you may have heard about the $100 million worth of capital Twitter recently secured and on the other end there is talk in the tweet-verse that Twitter isn't holding pace with Facebook. The question is does Twitter even need to keep up with Facebook? While both Twitter and Facebook have a nice social media package they are uniquely different. While the differences are many, for the most part it looks like this;

Twitter

1.) Micro Blogging - streams of text favorable towards short conversations and blogging.

Facebook

1.) Sharing - pretty much anything - pics, links, status - you name it.

From a job search perspective, Twitter is more favorable towards finding a new job or career based on the fundamentals of how Twitter works. Again, short fluid streams of text that anyone can track via hashtag or going directly to a friend's or follower's page. From there its simply connecting with the tweeter and asking for help, in the form of a job recommendation or whatever else the tweeter might be privy to.

Facebook on the other hand is a large sort of warehouse - like say Walmart, but only full of people instead. The sheer size and lack of clear delineation of people in Facebook makes it somewhat difficult to link with NEW people of common interest - especially if it's job related. If you're still struggling to see what i mean, compare LinkedIn to Facebook. People know why they are on LinkedIn right? They are there for networking - which almost always is something work or job related. Now if you ask the question why are people on Facebook, you might get puzzled. Why? Who knows why folks are on Facebook, since Facebook has a lot going on with its platform. Moreover from personal experience there are a lot of people on Facebook who simply want to share pictures and comment about what they're doing for the weekend. This doesn't go to say that you can't find your way in terms of making job connections on Facebook. Instead, it will likely be considerably more of a time investment than it would on Twitter.

So while both Twitter and Facebook have a market for social networking; Twitter doesn't need to follow Facebook to stay afloat. Facebook would win that fight since Facebook has their hands in almost everything - as far as staying in touch via the internet goes. On the other hand, Twitter has a nice niche that it can continue to leverage. Moreover, Twitter is becoming more and more useful with social networking for a job. You don't seem to hear that when it comes to Facebook - now do you?

Are you good at what you do? Better yet are you the best at what you do? Even better are you the best at what you do but yet you are hanging out in the unemployment line with no job? If so, you're not alone. It kind of goes against common sense wisdom huh. "Well if I'm in the top 5% at what i do, i will have no trouble recovering from this dreaded layoff..." That is what a lot of people similarly situated would think, but it just isn't so. Why? Why else - money. Why hire the best to do what three people much less qualified can do...and still come out ahead over what it costs to pay the best. Simply put - cheap labor. This is exploitation at its best or should i say worse. Indeed some companies, these days, would rather hire the bottom ten percentile than the top ten percent for no other reason than money. Kind of goes against what your mother and father have taught you about working hard, being the best, loyalty and all that jazz huh. Sad but it's true. It's even worse if you're stuck with student loans to pay for the smarts you've acquired in your career field, but can't explain why you don't have a job. Hell that's enough to make you want to head on over to China for a teachers job. At least you will be paid what a teacher is worth in China...and still have money left over - quite a bit of it too.

So short of heading over to China for a job, what can you do? That's a good question with no simple answer. The reason being is that everyone in a position to help you just assumes that the best are working or will be swooped up immediately by someone else. Talk about a negative self fulfilling prophecy. What those employers are saying is that they expect to hire less than the best, since the best are already working for someone else. So along comes you who is stuck between a rock and a hard place as my grandparents tend to say. The sad reality is that if you have the smarts or the "know how" but not the "know who"...you are in trouble. Your best bet might be to head on over to Twitter and tweet your way to a job or over to Facebook and call upon a friend of a friend or something like that. This is indeed a problem that Washington believes doesn't exist or will otherwise correct itself. Thus, social networking is likely the best option. Like i said, its crazy who would have thought that you get penalized with no job for being good at your profession. Wake up - smell the coffee (french vanilla or breakfast blend, not the cheesy stuff). The smart ones are having the hardest time out there, perhaps this new kind of Washington, we have, will work to address this issue. Until then, it's gung-ho social networking for a job.

GM has taken a back seat to other issues over the past few months, like national healthcare. Your worries are over, though, GM is back in the limelight. What for now? Effectively, the automaker has had a top executive pay cut imposed on them by Washington's former auto czar. In short, GM's CEO gets a slap on the wrist pay cut of 25% - down to a meager $950,000 cash salary for 2009. Now that's down from his former $1.26 million annual salary. This of course, doesn't include compensation from the sale of GM stock. While there are restrictions placed on Henderson's cashing in on personal stock, the fact of the matter is that even with the restrictions Henderson is looking good at making well over $5 million total compensation for 2009. Wow if that is punishment, we might see an onslaught of executives looking to sign up for the kind of punishment where you still make $5 million a year. Just ask, soon to be former Bank of America President, Ken Lewis who receives no salary for 2009 - nothing - nada - zilch. As for other GM executives, they get up to a 31% pay cut but the criteria for determining who and how much of the "up to 31%" will be imposed is not known or at least disclosed.

The part that always seems to get buried in the news segments, if covered at all, is how the employees of GM and the Bank of Americas are affected by their execs running their companies in the ground. You know what happens, employees get the job axe. They don't get media coverage, they don't get to vent to the President, they don't get a write up on CNN. Instead, they get to go stand in the unemployment line and wish and hope to find another job. Just ask the 120,000 displaced GM autoworkers that know this all too well. As if the 120,000 causalities wasn't enough, GM plans to eliminate another 1350 dealerships by the end of 2010. Eliminating that number of jobs is nothing short of absurdly ridiculous while the GM CEO gets a $5 million salary for 2009. This is echoed by the fact that GM had over two decades to build fuel efficient vehicles that would compete with Honda and Toyota vehicles but chose to build gas guzzling V8 vehicles instead. So while the current oversight of GM by the government is very much needed and long overdue, GM's executive pay cuts equate to nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Make those pay cuts equal to Ken Lewis' pay cut then maybe - just maybe the healing process could begin. After all, how many Americans get rewarded with job stability for poor job performance? You know how many. NONE!