LinkedIn Still Doesn’t Get It

Posted by Nick O'Neill on October 12th, 2007 12:49 PM

Last month I discussed Facebook’s killer feature that would potentially be the death of LinkedIn. While I still believe that this feature will keep me from using the site, it’s not the case for the majority according to Alexa. While Alexa is notorious for being wildly incorrect, it does appear that LinkedIn continues to grow according to Compete.com’s statistics. According to Saul Hansell of the New York Times, Linked in may even be preparing for an IPO.

While they may be preparing to file, they are still making less than Facebook, a company that doesn’t even have a significant revenue model yet. Also, apparently the CEO of LinkedIn (Dan Nye) doesn’t think that LinkedIn is a social network. Is he serious? So what is LinkedIn then? Simply a badge of all of my professional contacts that I have? As long as LinkedIn doesn’t view itself as a social network, the longer that I think Facebook is going to conquer LinkedIn’s territory. LinkedIn has a lack of features and their restrictions on communication have always turned me away.

The one nice feature is that the site tells you how you are connected to another individual. That could easily be completed by Facebook and this feature will have to be completed if they want to most accurately map the social graph. So what does LinkedIn have that Facebook doesn’t? An older and more wealthy demographic. Just because it’s more difficult to shift LinkedIn users over to Facebook, doesn’t mean it won’t happen. I already know that most of my LinkedIn contacts have. Do you think there is anything that will save LinkedIn from an invitable death? Do you think LinkedIn isn’t going anywhere?

This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, 2007 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Brian Harris 10 months ago 1 point
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I think that LinkedIn provides a different service than facebook, but they need to be thinking how they can leverage facebook if they want to keep their business.

One clear advantage LinkedIn has is in search engines. if you do a google search for "Brian Harris, San Francisco" #2 is LinkedIn. This is a clear advantage when looking for a job, employers can easily verify who you are.

Also as you mention, LinkedIn has a much older demographic most of which i think would be less willing to move over to facebook... Can you imagine a 60 year old C-Level Exec poking a colleague??

LinkedIn is here to stay, there will always be a need for it. they just have to embrace Facebook and use it to grow their user base.

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Kyle Mulka 10 months ago 1 point
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LinkedIn has features that are focused towards professionals and business networking. Social networking with your friends is different than business networking with colleagues. There's no reason to have photo galleries when you are business networking. I don't know about you, but the people I work with and the people I hang out with outside of work are, for the most part, different. Like Brian said, in a business context, there's no reason to 'poke' people. I have both a Facebook and LinkedIn account, and use them both. LinkedIn is like a virtual resume. Facebook doesn't work very well as a resume. There's only one section of work related stuff, and its not very detailed. LinkedIn has recommendations which, I think, is very useful.

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Aryn Hurst-Clark 5 months ago 1 point
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I agree with Kyle. Something needs to happen for Facebook to be taken seriously by Business users such as myself. I’m not 2 faced – but I do want 2 faces when it comes to mixing too much business and pleasure. I like LinkedIn because there is a certain amount of privacy built in – it means that when you contact someone (which costs money), it’s usually going to get a response as everyone knows it’s cost a bit of money – as opposed to facebook where I am already at the stage where I’m deleting any facebook email with the feeling that ‘if it’s important they can email me directly' (or what even happened to the telephone?). I think facebook has a lot to offer, but for me, I am still trying to maintain some level of professional separation between the two… I mean, you should see my Facebook photo – you think I want my clients seeing that?

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Syd Nee 6 days ago 1 point
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As long as LInkedin NEVER responds to e-mail or phone calls, as long as the phrase "customer service" is not in the LInkedin playbook, as long as Linkedin subscribes to the faciast, strong arm, restrictions without explanation, they will ultimately fail. I have never seen a business run so poorly. And, if we don't elect Obama and Biden to the whitehouse, prepare for perpetual war, perpetual forced draft, perpetual anti-alternative fuel and a perpetual anti-lower and middle class government hellbent on turning us into the new Soviet Union. No McBush. Vote for Obama and Biden, Change and experience.

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