How LinkedIn screwed up our friendship
kirillzubovsky.com
kirillzubovsky.com
People already have Facebook for that, or even Twitter, Tumblr, Google+ and so on. I generally never turn down connection requests from LinkedIn (even if I don't know the person) unless the requester is interested in ridiculous stuff such as 'advancing our careers by giving each other endorsements'. Yes, someone specifically sent me such a message and it made me remove them from my connection list.
I've also connected with quite a lot of people I 'met' through various Coursera courses I took and that seemed smart/interesting, but not with the intention of friending them. They sometimes make insightful comments to LinkedIn groups they're subscribed...I can read this in the Updates section. Sometimes they launch new business ventures and I'm happy for them they put the Startup Engineering course to good use. None of these people have bothered me with anything, but I have the opportunity to learn something by watching them evolve.
But yeah, I think I know what you mean, because I have used it for a long time.
So I'm really curious about the advantages and disadvantages of accepting everyone and having lots of connections (i.e. 1000+) in LinkedIn.
LinkedIn needs to stop focusing on raw numbers and work on quality engagement. As a recruiter, I have had a policy of accepting any request over the years, and it has resulted in 10100 connections and almost no engagement. I almost only go to LI to accept my requests. The most value LI has provided has been as a directory and having accepted 10k+ requests, I now have a very open and thorough directory. If I was trying to use the site for anything else, it would be a mess.
I think there's a lot of opportunity for them to fix this (and they probably will), but it seems like they're focusing on growth first.
I just got a response to on Twitter from @grayj_ , saying "Making a KPI go up will often get you a bonus or a promotion; advocating good UX won't."
However sad, I suspect this is the reality of LinkedIn being a large and slow corporation. Unfortunately :(
LinkedIn is pretty bad on this. Just when you think youve opted out of every mailing list, its seems like they invent or create some new 'feature' which opts you in. Again.
Somewhat related - I remember reading that when Facebook engineer decided to add a message feature to a friend request, Zuck got really pissed at him. I suspect that's because "# of connections" is a really hot metric, and it grows exponentially for people who blankly accept every request.
Thus, from LIN point of view, it makes sense to sacrifice UX for some people to get a sure growth for everyone else.
Now, if that "growth" is just a vanity metric, now that's a whole other story.
As much as it might seem corporate propaganda, LinkedIn really emphasizes a "members first" attitude in engineering. Engineers frequently get commended for decreasing spam, improving UX, and securing member data.
I guarantee this post will be reviewed tomorrow, and we'll discuss how to improve the flow for connecting with new LinkedIn members from the "People You May Know" feature.
Please keep the feedback coming. :)
And even logging in after clicking "Unsubscribe" doesn't unsubscribe you: you then have to go to options and find whatever caused the email yourself.
For a company that puts members first, that seems very member unfriendly. But it does mean more emails to users, which no doubt increases some metrics.
I was just recently thinking that I hadn't logged into linkedin since 2012 or 2011, and I've done some things to add to my resume. I assume a less than 1% chance what I do, would interest you.
If you run the math, 10K / (2 x 365) * 0.01 * 7 means your almost no engagement should be quantified to about one interesting thing per week, plus or minus a couple orders of magnitude. So its statistically believable.
"roughly one interesting thing per week" does translate to multiple billions of value in TV and music and movie biz, so its valuation is not entirely outta line.
I don't send requests to people who won't recognize me, so I much prefer avoiding the extra step when 'connecting'.
That said, I still haven't found a meaningful, practical use for LinkedIn. So far it just nets me self-styled ninja recruiters haranguing me based on keyword searches, which is just irritating.
That's what LinkedIn is for, really. I don't know how people find tech jobs without it. Apply? Hah
The need to physically meet people has become much less important, and reputation seems to be the difference. There are probably hundreds of people on HN who have received work from people before meeting them live, and perhaps were even referred by people they've never met live.
Agreed. Honestly, I wasn't even familiar with the idea that someone would even consider adding someone on LinkedIn who they hadn't already met in person. LinkedIn is just a useful addition to that in person meeting.
As for following up after conferences and such, the proper protocol is an email.
Oh it is? Cool! Okay guys, morgante solved all our communication problems. All you have to do is go on the internet and tell people what the proper protocol is for communicating and everything else will work itself out.
Guess what. I don't want people emailing me after a conference. I'd much rather they get a hold of me in other ways, like twitter, or facebook or linkedin. And what a surprise, your preferred method of communication is different from mine. It's almost like different people have different preferences and something that works for you may not work for other people. And maybe you shouldn't go around making arrogant proclamations about what the proper way to do something is cause people are probably going to disagree with you. What a concept!
regardless, i agree that my preference can be different than others.
I'm not maintaining a list of important relationships on it. It's a rolodex to me and a business card can and should be added to it whether or not we've done business already.
This idea of carefully pruning your connections seems quite popular. To those that do it, what's the upside? (The upside to letting almost everybody connect is that, if in 5 years I need to contact somebody or they need me it might be a little easier for us to get in touch.)
Facebook and Twitter, on the other hand, I check multiple times a day to make sure I'm not missing something "important" in the firehose, which just wastes tons of time.
It was a pretty horrifying realisation that I'd become one of those random inviters - now I have much more sympathy to people I've never heard of inviting me to connect! I refuse to use the mobile site again, so I haven't checked if it's been fixed.