Can no longer email group members on LinkedIn

I don't come on here and make posts or comments much, but I was really irritated by this. Has anyone else noticed that you can no longer email group members on LinkedIn? I noticed it last week and contacted Customer Service thinking it was a bug. They responded to me saying that their research has shown that it's being abused, so they are now incrementallty rolling out the change to the entire LinkedIn community. It's really disappointing that they're taking away a feature I use everyday. I am a Premier paid subscriber of LinkedIn, and I'm assuming the majority of their paid subscribers are recruiters, so unfortunately we will all be adversely affected.

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Leary on March 14, 2011 at 11:08am

wow

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on March 14, 2011 at 11:45am

bummer

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Permalink Reply by Shannon Drawbaugh on March 14, 2011 at 3:35pm

That's exactly what I said to my co-worker b/c quite honestly, with that change, we'll probably have to increase our plans!

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Permalink Reply by Christopher Poreda on March 14, 2011 at 5:31pm

smells like the ladders.com. better be careful!

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Permalink Reply by Suresh on March 14, 2011 at 7:59pm

This could be a huge impact for them. The incentive to create groups on Linkedin will diminish, if group owners don't have much control.

Can't say I am surprised. Again, this is the problem with companies luring in with Free stuff and then having to charge people..It will get interesting. Social Media was never FREE (it costs us time and now money too).

(NING started will all free platforms and ended having to change it last year)

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Permalink Reply by Thomas Patrick Chuna on March 14, 2011 at 10:39pm

I can still email my fellow group members, no problem.

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Permalink Reply by C. B. Stalling!! on March 15, 2011 at 9:16am

I have not had a problem...

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Permalink Reply by Shannon Drawbaugh on March 15, 2011 at 9:24am

The customer service rep that I communicated with told me that the change is being rolled out incrementally, so many users have not been affected yet, but he said that it absolutely is a global change and that all of the LinkedIn community will see the change sooner or later. I've loved LinkedIn b/c I've made a great return on my investment. I guess the change really irritated me only b/c it will cost me more!

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Permalink Reply by Scott Godbey on March 15, 2011 at 9:57am

Shannon, with their IPO pending, LinkedIn is most likely finding another way to increase revenues. It wouldn't surprise me if even more free features are eliminated in the next few months

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Permalink Reply by Al Merrill on March 15, 2011 at 12:56pm

I just canceled my premium account- this is just silliness with all the ads they let people run for programs they are selling...I thinked LinkedIn in many ways has been oversold in it's value to headhunters. It's really never been the value I supposed it to be!

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Permalink Reply by Irina Shamaeva on March 16, 2011 at 11:18am

It's still working fine! It's juts that the "send message" is not showing in the search results. Instead they show "send InMail". Go to the profile and you will see the send message link.

Irina

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Permalink Reply by Al Merrill on March 16, 2011 at 2:11pm

Hi Erik-

I appreciate your thoughts- we all run our businesses differently and have different requirements. LinkedIn never was a requirement for me to be successful, but the the comments and a special few people who wrote them made for interesting reading, and some had good ideas.