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LinkedIn: a closed social network for professionals
A week ago, a new professional networking site was launched called
LinkedIn. The web site provides very little information, describing the network only at a very high level. Essentially, LinkedIn acts as a conduit between your (already established) professional network with other people's networks. The home page sums this up well "If each of your 20 trusted contacts connected to 20 more of their own, you could potentially contact more than 150,000 professionals through the people you already know and trust." Hence the slogan, "Your network is bigger than you think." The idea is that you sign-up, and then invite your entire professional network to join (and so on). The web site seems to discourage individual sign-ups, so I haven't joined yet. Perhaps someone reading this will be so kind as to invite me (hint, hint, nudge, nudge). While I couldn't find out much information on the web site, thanks to Tecnhorati, I was to find a lot more information, including this
conversation of
Joi Ito's blog. This discussion alone provided much more information (and opinion) than the web site, and included comments from LinkedIn founder
Reid Hoffman. Only a week in, and several differing opinions on the format, structure, and ultimate success of LinkedIn have been voiced. Some have commented on the
proportion of male to female members, while others believe it is an
ideal model for business networking. The reputation system element to the network will be an important one, and the system seems to be modeled after the "real" world. Since, members are connected based on common contacts, you put your reputation on the line -- when recommending someone for a job, for example. Does the system include a feedback system? Is it viewable by all members, or just members of the same network? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I will post a more detailed review if invited to join...
Posted by Mark at May 14, 2003 4:41 PM
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