LinkedIn losing their way or just missing the point?

Here they go again our friends at LinkedIn. When will they learn not to interfere with the way their members want to engage and network around the 22million plus community. They have now restricted the number of Groups people can join (and why?) to 50. Sounds like a lot I know but there are very similar group names with small memberships so its likely you need to join them all the connect with your target interest group.

And the real stupid thing is that LinkedIn will remove you from your latest joined groups in 30 days if you have not chosen the ones you want to remove yourself from within 10 days and done so....

But thats OK because LinkedIn plan to install new functionality and widgets so your user experienced in groups is enhanced.

I have over 4800 connections on LinkedIn and 72 Group memberships and I pay for a premium service and you can probably tell Im not impressed with their decision. Why cant they let me stick with what Ive got in Group memberships. What affect does it have to LinkedIn?

Confused.com! What happened to Web 2.0 LinkedIn?

Anyway the action by LinkedIn confirms my decision to create Executive Careers Network (ECN). Here it is an open social network. Create as many groups as you like and join as many as you like. In fact why dont you email your fellow group members at LinkedIn and suggest they come over to ECN and have a modern internet experience.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ivan Stojanovic on October 10, 2008 at 12:16pm

LikedIN is becomming booooring.

I guess they started thinking more about the investors than the users. And that is teh 'Turnimg Point' os so many .com's....

Ivan
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanstojanovic

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Permalink Reply by Gavin Chase on October 11, 2008 at 7:32am

I think I agree with you Ivan..

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Permalink Reply by Maureen Sharib on October 11, 2008 at 9:26am

LinkedIn or LockedOut?
Which is more fitting?

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Permalink Reply by Gavin Chase on October 11, 2008 at 11:19am

Reinforces my decision to take LinkedIn on at their own game.... get every one over to Future Career Network where open communication is the key!

Maureen Sharib said:

LinkedIn or LockedOut?
Which is more fitting?

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Permalink Reply by Tom on October 12, 2008 at 2:06pm

Linked in was all the rage at an owners conference I recently attended. Now I find this bit of info. This is depressing...

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Permalink Reply by Kent Sims on October 17, 2008 at 3:28pm

I'm not sure if this is just a marketing ploy to introduce ECN, or if you are actually looking for a discussion about LinkedIn...but I'm going to reply either way. This is something I posted in reply to a different topic, but I believe it directly speaks to your comments about LinkedIn and social networking sites in general.

More and more Recruiting Professionals keep switching over to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc... to use these "alternative" sources. This is flooding those "alternatives" with Recruiters and much of the professional community is beginning to form a disfavorable opinion of those sites.

I am not very active anymore on LinkedIn because I was personally sick of Recruiters trying to connect to me. I would have 5-10 new requests per freaking day and it got old. Random requests for NO apparent reason other than because I was also a Recruiter. Honestly...I don't need 150-200 connections to other Recruiters. That's just ridiculous.

So as you continue to flood these "alternatives methods" what was (again) once niche is now becoming mainstream. How is that any better than the way you were Recruiting before?

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Permalink Reply by Gavin Chase on October 17, 2008 at 4:35pm

Thanks for your honest thoughts.... and yes there was a marketing angle to my post but also a serious one. I too am sick of the recruiter approach which is why open social networking is preferable - they wont need to ask me a thing!

Kent Sims said:

I'm not sure if this is just a marketing ploy to introduce ECN, or if you are actually looking for a discussion about LinkedIn...but I'm going to reply either way. This is something I posted in reply to a different topic, but I believe it directly speaks to your comments about LinkedIn and social networking sites in general.

More and more Recruiting Professionals keep switching over to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc... to use these "alternative" sources. This is flooding those "alternatives" with Recruiters and much of the professional community is beginning to form a disfavorable opinion of those sites.

I am not very active anymore on LinkedIn because I was personally sick of Recruiters trying to connect to me. I would have 5-10 new requests per freaking day and it got old. Random requests for NO apparent reason other than because I was also a Recruiter. Honestly...I don't need 150-200 connections to other Recruiters. That's just ridiculous.

So as you continue to flood these "alternatives methods" what was (again) once niche is now becoming mainstream. How is that any better than the way you were Recruiting before?

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Permalink Reply by Jason C. Blais on October 17, 2008 at 8:33pm

Devil's Advocate: Is it realistic to maintain nearly 5,000 connections? Would you put your reputation at stake to refer these people to work for a close friend? I would ask what the point of LinkedIn is. Is it a way to find info on thousands of people you don't know, or a service to build your network through personal relationships that you can leverage? Thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Mohit Dewan on October 18, 2008 at 12:54am

Over the past 3-4 years, LinkedIn has become a recruiting portal under the garb of a social/professional networking site. I would'nt be surprised if over the next 2 years they move totally in this direction and start charging for everything.

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Permalink Reply by Gavin Chase on October 18, 2008 at 3:54am

Jay - I totally agree! As a recruiter I am only interested in developing the largest pool of information I can about as many people as I can as quickly as I can. You see Im a headhunter and I dont use LinkedIn the way it was designed to be.... shock horror! Well lets be honest LI make it as hard as possible for you to get to know anyone whilst on the face of it providing lots of ideas to do so.

Unless LinkedIn are able to turn around this supertanker I get a sense that Mohit is right - it will become a CV database you pay to access!

JayB said:

Devil's Advocate: Is it realistic to maintain nearly 5,000 connections? Would you put your reputation at stake to refer these people to work for a close friend? I would ask what the point of LinkedIn is. Is it a way to find info on thousands of people you don't know, or a service to build your network through personal relationships that you can leverage? Thoughts?