Jeff Pulver has always been the consummate networker. People want to know him, and he's the type of gracious and wonderful individual who makes time for others. So, it's easy to understand why Jeff feels a need to disengage himself from the LinkedIn introductions process. When people you don't know ask for introductions to your friends, you want to know whether the introduction is going to be received well, and you want to know a little about the individual you are introducing.
I'm personally a user of LinkedIn, and connected to over 1500 people, some of whom I don't know very well. It's a direct contradiction, by the way, of what LinkedIn advises you to do, which is to only link with people you know and would recommend. Why so many? LinkedIn is an inexpensive recruiting tool, which has provided high quality candidates in the past. Compared to monster.ca (the previous job posting site I used) LinkedIn is dramatically cheaper, and produces a much higher percentage of quality candidates. By having a large LinkedIn network, I have access to more candidates. What that means, though, is that I am a little more discriminating about who I will introduce and who not.
Kfir Pravda has written a fun follow-on to Jeff's posting, in which he categorizes social network users.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Alec,
I think that one of the problems with LinkedIn is that they encourage users to have many connections, by means of filtering search results by amount of contacts and such. I am also a member of Xing (which I liked much more when it had a normal name like openbc, and didn't have all that Ajax things all around), and there you clearly see a difference – as they truly encourage users to contact people they know, or at least have high quality contacts. My friends from Germany see it as a much more professional site due to this reason. I also got more direct business queries than in LinkedIn. Still, I publish my profile in LinkedIn more, cause in the American and Israeli market it is much stronger.
Glad you enjoyed my post,
Kfir
Interesting that you find LinkedIn better than Monster. Seems like social network sites are taking over everything.
Justin
Linkedin was based on the principle that you only networked within 'your network' – this encouraged people to try and get the biggest network possible accepting anyone. They have now introduced a tool to allow you to get rid of contacts you dont want.
Xing and Viadeo (I work with Viadeo so let that be clear) allow you to build networks on line by finding profiles that interest you and requesting contact. Viadeo allows you to go through intermediaries or direct (if the person accepts direct contacts) while Xing only has direct contacts. With Xing you have to pay to get any joy from the network, while Viadeo like Linked'in provides a lot for free.
The style of networking and features of the three networks are quite different. Perhaps you would like to try Viadeo!
I’ll check it out peter, although I have to say that LinkedIn works pretty well for me.