I hate LinkedIn

...LinkedIn hates you too. Just kidding, but really that type of networking is useless for someone like you. And quite frankly based on your vast network of contacts, it would be useless for someone to have you in their network. "Oh, you're in Robert Scoble's LinkedIn network...um, like who isn't". Sort of whore-ish at that level. I agree with some of the points in the link...I've never gotten anything of use from LinkedIn, or Classmates, or Facebook...ugh, social networking sucks.

I think Social networking is useful in general and works where communication tends to be 1:n and "1" is not able to respond so big "n" but not sure it's useful in this case. I haven't got any useful from LinkedIn at all - have anybody a different experience?

What exactly are you expecting from LinkedIn?

I've been slowly going through my own <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fajalar/sets/72157594185119027/
">web2.0 clean-up. I've found LinkedIn handy from time to time, but not in a big way. I haven't got to the point of adding it to the clean up pile though.

The only network I've gotten anything out of is 9rules. Huge benefits, but I suppose that comes from people wanting to be helpful and being organised in such a way where it is very easy to communicate needs.

Social/Professional networking online doesn't suck, I think it just needs to be done at the group level rather than the "society" level that LinkedIn does it.

hmm, I have been able to keep in touch with friends, get my wife a new exciting job, help a couple of friends get new jobs, be offered a few interesting jobs (that weren't exciting enough to take), and generally stay in touch with people who I have worked with in the past. It is also interesting to find where my life has intersected with several other coleagues in the past, working for a similar company or knowing particular people.

I'm not sure what other people expect out of LinkedIn, for me, it is a great way to keep up with everyone I interact with (co-workers, family, friends, etc, etc) and it is a great way to keep those people in touch with me.

The benefits that Linkedin bring may not benefit every user. It does take a lot of effort to get it started before it becomes useful. It is a great way to reconnect the lost contact due to phone change, email change, company change or even career change. It saves a lot of time to inform your network on your change of job title and description, or any promotion. Sometimes you can be a little bit more creative in describing your profile, other than your boring resume on paper. I never submit my resume to any online job board but I feel Linkedin is a more fun place to add my listing.

I post on linkedin what I like the least about my work. My boss did cut down his singing frequency. By the way, he is a great karaoke singer - very good with Frank Sinatra. He can easily turn into a popular singing guest at any wedding. I am proud of him.

I am a consultant, and I make a ton of contacts at both conferences and client sites that I don't want to lose. I'm not necessarily someone that they would think to notify when they change jobs or email addresses, but the nice thing about LinkedIn is that they don't have to think to notify you, linked in takes care of it.

I don't publish my resume, I don't try to get 'introductions' -- I just use it as big address book. Works great for me.

First, I agree we should allow members to remove their accounts without having to send a note to customer service. However, it has never made the priority list because there are so few account closure requests (and so many other requests to enhance features/create new ones).

But I hope we can get to it soon since it's not good for LinkedIn to have accounts of users who don't want to be there. I'm not expecting many account closures once we provide a self-service option since we have extremely few members who don't respond to invitations or contact requests. They may not accept all invitations (which is in fact what we want), but they do accept invitations from people they know and trust.

When people say they haven't received value from LinkedIn, I find it's mostly because they have never tried to do a search to find someone who can help them with a specific business problem (need to hire someone, find an expert, check a reference, find investor, get inside connection to prospect/partner, get a job, etc.). So, the good news is that LinkedIn works. The bad news is that you have to work it. But, then again, how much value does Google provide if you don't type something into the search box? It's really no different with LinkedIn.

I've had lots of positive experiences with LinkedIn, including meeting a number of splendid fellow professionals through the "power group" of MyLinkedInPowerForum, a busy set of 170 different mailing lists for people who are interested in learning more about how to use LinkedIn to their professional advantage.

Robert, I think you might be throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater on this one and I'm happy to show you what I use it for when I'm in Seattle in 10 days! :-)

I am on linkedin more just because it is the only system most americans are able to use. so far it is quite useless.

I do although use openbc/xing very heavily - and be it just for the very basic reason that I am able to get real contact information from my contacts which I also can download to my system (You cannot synchronize which is one of my pet peeves but there are workarounds).

A lot of my contacts are not so close that I would inform them about any kind of changes, but I from time to time want to get in touch with them. I know you publish your mobile phone number online, but I would love to have it in one system where I do not have to update it myself because you do, seperated in the different settings.

And, even if you do not use linkedin, I would make a user just with the information in it, that you hate the system and will deny all requests for connection. :)))

It's been a lot of fun for me. It helped me to find a couple of old friends I had lost contact with. I'd been trying to find one of them for years. I've helped a couple of other people do the same. I don't take it that seriously but I don't think it is a bad thing either.

Like you, I get many invites from LinkedIn and when I do accept them (every few weeks I feel guilty and sign in), 98% of them have NOTHING to tell me. It's like another notch on their belt. I have 4 contacts who have 500+ connections each!

Many of your readers above have found creative uses of the network...but I am like you. May be we are Luddites -)

I also have had mixed feelings about LinkedIn, although I wouldn't say that I hate it. I have been a linked in "user" for a little over a year, although my account was kicked off over 2 years ago. The fact that it laid dormant and was not used for almost a year is probably a good example of the Robert Scoble experience with LinkedIn. Overall, I think the service is most useful as a way to track colleagues.

At the time I was working at AOL (I worked for AOL for almost 8 years before being laid off). At the end of my AOL career, I knew everyone that I could know and my address book/AIM buddy list was the way I networked with the players that be. Through a lot of networking, I could get in touch with pretty much anyone in the company.

However, the minute I got laid off in Oct of last year (way before the current rounds thankfully) everything changed. I started using LinkedIn as a tool to keep track of people I knew at AOL as they changed jobs within the company or as they left. It because a pseudo corporate directory for the people I only talk to once every couple months/years.

What happens if someone you worked with (someone I would call a strong business acquaintance, but not necessarily a personal friend) changes jobs? Would they know to tell you where they landed? Would they have a website that let everyone know, or a company that was forward thinking (or small) enough to publish their employee's contact info? Unless you stay in regular contact and build yourself as an equally important person, when it comes time to find that business partner how do you do it?

I have not found any way better to help track this than LinkedIn. I am not a power user by any means (I have less than 60 contacts). But as long as the other person continues to use LinkedIn, if I ever need to cash in a favor in the future I'll have a good place to start. And I gladly accept anyone who sends me an invite since they at one point talked to me long enough to get my email account or found it off a website like this. I want to get to know those type of people.

I understand why Robert doesn't use, or doesn't need LinkedIn. First, he lists his contact info in a central place, allowing search engines to track his info and present it to others. Second he has ablog that he tells people what is happening in his life (for example "Hey all, I'm leaving MS and here is my Email, My Skype, My Live Messenger, and GoogleTalk accounts!"). Most users don't have this transparency in their lives.

At least, there's SOME way to get out of it.

Much more hideous than LinkedIn is Plaxo. There you can't control who uploads your full data to their service.

Robert, This may help.

1. Account & Settings > Contact Settings
Select - I’ll accept only Introductions
Select - Do not notify me via email. I'll check my LinkedIn Inbox instead.

You can cut down the no. of incoming emails from linkedin.

2. Update your profile. Copy & Paste!

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I am open for contacts if you are qualified and excellent candidate for my TV Show:
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I find the endorsement feature in linkedin to be quite useful. I have 11 endorsements which reduces the burden on those friends. This I appreciate.

Tim - nice post!

Konstantin - it would be nice if you answered questions sent to you via e-mail privately as well as you did Robert's blog entry.

I like linkedin overall but don't find it as useful as it could be due to a lack of focus on user requests for community improvement:
- At least six months ago, I asked for last login date to be added like in myspace
RESULT: NEVER RECEIVED A RESPONSE OR ACTION.
- You claim you don't like users who invite over and over. Yet I e-mailed regarding one user who has sent invites to me 7 to 1o times.
RESULT: NO RESPONSE OR ACTION.
- I've discussed several times the need to rectify multiple accounts held by casual users who land in new roles. This clutter makes Linkedin less useful than it could be.
RESULT: NO ACTION TO DATE.

I'd love to see Linkedin become a more customer focused and useful communtity. I don't see the listening required to take it to the next level. So to summarize, I've gotten value out of linkedin but nowhere near the amount that I could if some changes made in the interest of users were made.

Robert my friend,

Please check this out. I can't hold back my sense of humor. Sometimes it is a good thing to be very popular. Like a pretty girl in a bar get hit on by many guys.

This is what I found out. Sometime the more money you make the fewer people want to connect you.

I find your beloved employer Bill Gate sign up at Linkedin. But he is very lonely with only 1 connection. And he opens himself for Introduction and InMails.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&am...

I wouldn't mind to network. It would be great if he wouldn't mind to come by Silicon Valley and speak at our little tiny Web SIG and shake hands with geeks.

And the interesting part. You are right about Steve Baller. He hasn't signup Linkedin yet. As you described, he usually run a little bit behind in social networking :)

Don't worry. Google Founder Sergey Brin is no where to be found too. He is too busy releasing products.

I find it useful as an address book, finding job contacts, and general reputation service (through a chain of trust, I spot people I can also probably trust).

I've only gotten one or two invites from headhunters or connection collectors, and I just locked them out.

Linkedin - sminked in, whatever! I agree wholeheartedly! I find all I need via the blogosphere or dirt-world networking. I have little use for Linkedin, et al. Robert - you owe me answers to my interview! Please!

LinkedIn has been very useful for me lately. I love the updates when one of my contacts updates their profile. It can be so hard to keep up with everyone that this little feature makes a big difference in my world.

I just began creating a LinkedIn network on Friday based on the recommendation of a former colleague; I’m looking for a few consulting contracts. I haven’t completed my profile, but did land a new contract over the weekend as the result of my LinkedIn invitation to a former coworker, and have two others in the works that are the result of 2nd degree contacts.

For a person like me who took a few years off to focus on family, it seems to be a great vehicle for getting the word out as I make my way back into the professional world. It's been a quick and easy way to track down former colleagues.

What's LinkedIn? Maybe you should explain you concepts before talking about them...

I like LinkedIN, but it's just another social tool I use to keep up with people. I sometimes feel like I need to have the public (will connect with anyone profile) and another profile that reflect my actual connections. I'm just too nice to turn people down most times. And I still turn down 50% of my requests.

If your blog has even minimal readership you are a LinkedIN spam target. It's like being a mini-celeb, with none of the cool perks ;)

Because there is an incentive to build connections, people will game it. Doostang is rather interesting. I've never gotten spam there, but then I've only got a handful of connections and I haven't worked at 'cool places' that probably get alot of searches. Anyhoo, I kinda agree and I kinda disagree. How's that for straddling the fence? ;)

I wonder if Robert would have made this post if USVP had funded LinkedIn instead of Sequoia Capital?

From my perspective, LinkedIn seems fairly harmless. Hate seems too strong of a word when they make it hard to unsubscribe from their service.

There is a lot of injustice in this world. Difficulty in unsubscribing from a social networking site just doesn't seem to rank up there.

My guess is that there is something else going on here. Who at LinkedIn put that bee in your bonnet Robert?

Mark: yes I would have. I don't give a hoot who funded this stuff. Obviously you haven't read my blog very long. When I worked at Microsoft I regularly said similar things about teams at Microsoft.

Anyway, I hate it cause it adds to my email stream and doesn't bring me any value. But, like someone else said, I'm an edge case cause I already have a blog and already have a killer rolodex and already have my email address and phone number on my blog so that people who want to get ahold of me can do so. No need to go through five of my friends just to get to me.

Don't mind LinkedIn but I hate Yahoo! Here is why:

LInkIn is VERY useful to keep track of people's changing email addresses as they change companies.

That's all folks! At least for me.

Robert,

Sorry about the ad hominem. Actually, I have been reading your blog on and off since you made the move from NEC to MS and now to PodTech.

I think your comments would have been much better if you would have said, "I don't like so and so because..."

Saying something like "I hate so and so..." makes you sound like you are a big blowhard and I don't think you are like that. :)

LinkedIn helps me find people I need to reach personal and business goals. I can also make it easy for my friends to do the same.

There's no other way for my friends to know who I know otherwise ( and I want to help my friends connect). Once you start getting blind pitches it is a bit annoying, but I ignore that. Also, it would be nice if your could have more granular control over who see's what e.g. Cat 1 - see all my contacts, Cat 2 - see my "public" contacts.

LinkedIn is one of the very few recently created services that I actually find of considerable value. The emails it sends out are far from burdensome. Not sure where the hate is coming from.

For someone like Scoble, LinkedIn could serve as a decent gatekeeper.

Robert, won't one post have been enough on your displeasure with LinkedIn? Now, three really is the limit, ok? ;-)

fools: I really, really, really, really hate it. :-)

I signed up for it and now I get all this damned email.

Robert's honesty on his user experience should be honored and cherished. If I have to conduct a usability test, I wouldn't want to have a user tell me what I like to hear. I want the user to tell me what he thinks, where the problem areas are, and what users really want.

Konstantin Guericke: It is a bad business strategy not to give user easy way to cancel the account online.

First of all, it frustrates user. I have seen my friends signup twice because they make mistake for the first account. Your customer service doesn't seem to response very well according to the above posts. Or it didn't communicate well with user that your team is working on fixes.

From the analytical standpoint, you are hiding the true attrition rate. Not allowing user to cancel the account, user become "inactive user" and go into "inactive" pool data. In fact these users are dead and they hate linkedin. Not only they hate linkedin, they also tell their friends and blog about it. You never find out why they hate linkedin in the first place. Your designer and engineering team will run business as usual. Management is always the last to know until something happen.

Can you imagine what if you allow users to easily cancel the account online? What valuable information you can gain? It's a gold mine to dig. Compile the log files and database to find out the visiting path, user behavior, and data trends. Cluster analysis. It will give you new insight and discover something new for improvement.

Every dead user has its story to tell. Like a soldier die in the battlefield.

It would be great if Linkedin was operationally competent and was able
to deliver renewal of invite supply on a timely basis. Companies come
and go based on their ability to execute. Waiting 5 days now for
Linkedin to followup on its 1 day customer service SLA. In contrast,
one of the webhosting companies I use in an emerging market, responds
immediately with a message and ticket # and usually has my issue
resolved in 6 hours. All for $2 a month. They also have a phone
number that a live person answers and directs you to if it is urgent.

Feel free to linkin to me.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/martysecada

Join IvyPlus, www.ivyplus.biz

LinkedIn just made a major change in how invitations are handled and put some policies in place that should almost completely eliminate unwanted invitation spam:

http://linkedintelligence.com/linkedin-makes-it-easier-to-connect-with-people-you-know-harder-with-people-you-dont

HELP!!I cannot stand linked in. i have asked for my account to be closed. yet my link is still on google with my name, weeks after cancelling. i find it appaliing thay are using my name as a portal and advertising for their servoce. does anyone have a phone number that i can call linked in and get them to sort this out? many thanks!

I recently joined DooStang only to get booted off because I invited too many people at once. The server will not even recognize my e-mail address, which it sent e-mails too minutes before. If someone could please re-invite me to DooStang I would greatly appreciate it. My e-mail address is drew.cesario@gmail.com

LinkedIn sucks. Period. In the end, it will amount to no more than a handful of companies/headhunters/"users" circle-jerking over how many contacts they can accumulate. The data will go stale and the company with not be able to reasonably charge for its service. It will become as significant to Internet/Life experience as Roy Rogers has become to the world of fast-food.

Read some of the "positive" comments here - tell me they don't look like cut&paste "testimonials". Probably LinkedIn employees.

"Anne Stanton" "says":

LinkedIn has been very useful for me lately. I love the updates when one of my contacts updates their profile. It can be so hard to keep up with everyone that this little feature makes a big difference in my world.

I'm pretty sure that if you went to the Ronco (Ron Popeil) site you could find something along the lines of:

"Judy (not the 'Judy' from 'Time/Life Books') Clark" "says":

THE RONCO(TM) INSIDE-THE-EGG-SCRAMBLER has been very useful for me lately. I love SCRAMBLED EGGS when I USE THE RONCO(TM) INSIDE-THE-EGG-SCRAMBLER. It can be so hard to SCRAMBLE EGGS BY CRACKING THEM INTO A BOWL AND MIXING THEM WITH A FORK that THE RONCO(TM) INSIDE-THE-EGG-SCRAMBLER makes a big difference in my world.

I hate LinkedIn. At first, I was a big fan like many of us. However, my page experienced some technical glitches and I was not able to access MY OWN PAGE! I emailed for customer support - NOTHING! I emailed again - received a lame response and no resolution. I had at least 150 people in my network that I put there. After complaining about the craphole service they gave me, they canceled and deleted my account without notice. Linked In sucks and I hope that Dan Nye reads this and fires his lame customer support staff!

LinkedIn. One day I logged on and my profile had gone from 90% and over 200 contacts with 3 referrals to a profile of 25%, 3 contacts, no referrals and my picture was even gone. I sent many emails to the LinkedIn help desk, but to no avail. I am not happy either. What is this phone number for linkedin?
Thanks!

I'm a big fan of social networking sites in general, but I find LinkedIn to be sluggish, feature-poor and cluttered. As far as address book functionality is concerned, I think plaxo is more useful. For staying in touch with friends and colleagues, facebook does the trick. It seems to me that the main selling point of linkedIn is its traditional-sounding, un-scary name.

Lets be serious. Linked in is shit! and not that nhelpful at all. Please so boring. most of our accounts just rot in there. stuff linked in seriously a boring and unfriendly site. wish i had never joined.