Linked'n'37

LinkedIn Maine

2007-07-28T06:34:00.000Z

I'm shortly having a well-earned break with my family. We're flying off to visit relatives in Maine.

Anyway, I thought I'd take a look on LinkedIn to see how many people in my online network live nearby.

LinkedIn has this great feature where you can specify how far someone lives from a specific zip code (it works in the UK now, too).

So I typed in the zip code for the town I'm staying in and the search results showed 500 LinkedIn members within 50 miles!

If you use LinkedIn you'll know that 500 is the maximum it will show... so there are probably many more.

Mind you, it helps that I'm connected with the No.1 LinkedIn member in the area :-)

Ah... the tweaks explained

2007-04-16T06:04:00.000Z

Fortunately, with people like Shally Steckerl about, it's possible to understand what the recent LinkedIn tweaks are all about.

Shally's recent ERE blog "Recent LinkedIn Changes – Boom or Bust?" covers the changes with regard to invitations.

Shally takes exception to the limit of 256 characters (including spaces) for your invitation. To me, I like to keep things brief to I'm less concerned about this.

The bit I find interesting is that the mechanism of inviting has changed.

Now, when you invite someone you are prompted to choose how I know the person.

If they are a Colleague, Classmate or Business Partner you don't need their email to send an invitation to connect. If you describe them as either a Friend or "Other" then you need their email address (which is the same as it always used to be)

But, you can now invite people who you don't know.

This is a major change for LinkedIn. And it also explains why another tweak that happened recently is that you can now reply to invitations you receive.

** NOTE **
When I tried testing these functions on LinkedIn following Shally's blog I could not find them. When LinkedIn introduce new features they often test them over a period of time, turning them on and off as they do so. I suspect that these new features are not fully up yet.

Or I'm just being a bit thick :-)

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Social Networking, LinkedIn

A few more LinkedIn tweaks

2007-04-13T13:06:00.000Z

It seems to be LinkedIn's way to slip in new changes without any major announcements.

Today I find my InBox has changed so that I can now accept/decline invitations straight from the font page.

Since the introduction of LinkedIn Answers, the front page has been getting a little busy, and it's very easy to miss invitations, etc from your inbox.

When you do click through to an invitation the UI looks similar to that of Answers, which a "flag a SPAM" link.

What does this new feature add? To be honest... I'm not sure.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Social Networking, LinkedIn

Using LinkedIn as a Business Tool - Podcast

2007-04-07T09:40:00.000Z

Stan Relihan, "Australia's Most Connected Recruiter" sent me a link to a podcast "Using LinkedIn As A Business Tool".

Stan is a recruiter in Sydney and has over 5000 connections and I've been connected with him for some time.

The interview with G'day World is very useful for anyone interested in using LinkedIn for Business.

Thanks for the link, Stan.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Social Networking, LinkedIn

WARNING... think before you ask a LinkedIn Question

2007-01-07T18:05:00.000Z

A few days ago LinkedIn launched "Answers". The service was universally acknowledged as a great new feature, and then the SPAM questions started.

LinkedIn certainly listened and, from MLPF, I know a few had their accounts restricted.

Here's the official line - "Please don’t contribute to [LinkedIn Answers] by posting "Questions" (or answers) that are requests for invitations or ads or solicitations. People who misuse this feature will have their accounts restricted. People who have a history of misusing LinkedIn may lose their accounts."

But beyond this, there is something else to consider. When you ask a question you can automatically send the question to your contacts (up to 200, I think).

When they receive your "question" there is also a little link which they can click on to remove you as a connection.

I actually this is a very smart move from LinkedIn.

Keep spamming your connections with thinly veiled , self-promotional "questions" and guess what, you'll not have many connections left.

And remember, once a connection is broken you cannot reconnect.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Social Networking, LinkedIn

Show me the money!

2007-01-07T09:59:00.000Z

Has it really been nearly 3 months since I last posted here? Q4 was busy for my consulting practice and so my ramblings here have had to take a back seat (got to pay those bills you know!)

And paying the bills, or "monetizing" has become a bit of a theme in the social networking space recently.

Aside from a recent round of investment for LinkedIn and Xing's successful IPO, here's two interesting stories:

After 2 years and nearly 5000 members, Vincent Wright is shutting down MyLinkedinPowerForum on February 9, 2007. On MLPF, Vincent wrote:

Though I can still see many things more to do with MLPF, I need to focus on improving my personal prosperity. And if I attempted to carry MLPF too much further, I’d starve - and that’s not nearly as much fun as you may think! :-)

Bottom line: Realistically, this grassroots effort can no longer be done alone and it certainly can’t be done alone AND for free.

And, at this time, I’m compelled to admit that I’ve been unsuccessful in my efforts to successfully fund the group’s grassroots work.

I wish Vincent the all the best. MLPF created a great deal of value for it's members, not least in the ability to "jump-start" their online networks.

To me, it's a lesson for many Web 2.0 companies... now you've built your membership, how do you make it pay. Or, as Jerry Maguire said "show me the money"

At the same time, Ecademy, have been addressing this same issue; the "Greenstar" entry-level grade of membership has now been dropped.

This has caused a number of members to question the value of Ecademy, but, to me, it's simply Ecademy decision on how to monetize their site.

In a way I think their decision could be a good one.

They were clearly loosing the membership arms-race. With just around 100,000 members, they've been overtaken by many new "social networking" startups and are dwarfed by Xing (1m+) & LinkedIn (8.5m+).

However, Ecademy have a different agenda I think.

They have always been closely aligned with offline networking events, and their demographic is clearly one-man-band businesses, freelancers and consultants. And how many of those are there in the world?

With the tools for self-promotion that come with Ecademy membership (unlimited ads & blogging), it's still a good value proposition.

Unlike MLPF, Ecademy have found a way to "show me the money".

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Social Networking, Xing,LinkedIn,Ecademy

openBC to become Xing

2006-09-27T07:54:00.000Z

I've just noticed that openBC is to be re-branded as Xing when it's receives it's new makeover.

Apparently, according to openBLOG it's going to be launched Q4, preferably before the end of November.

Also, I reading one comment on their blog, I've discovered that Germans pronounce Xing as: "iksin".

It's interesting as I bet they've chosen the word "Xing" as it's not a "real word" and therefore not tied to any nationality (they're making a big point of its multilingualism - which LinkedIn doesn't have... yet). Bit like Skype really, I guess.

As a Brit, I'd pronounce Xing as "Zing".

So, where does that leave us?

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Social Networking, openBC,Xing

"Tag You're It" - another cool openBC feature

2006-07-25T06:27:00.000Z

Just noticed another cool feature on openBC - you can organise your contacts by tags.

Obviously, no self-respecting Web 2.0 site can get by nowadays with using tags. Ecademy uses them to cluster their marketplace listings. Wireless World Forum uses them for each member to show what topics they're tracking.

And now openBC allows you to add tags to each contact (the tags are only seen by you) so you can cluster contacts by "golf club", "ex-colleagues", "knows whats-his-face", etc.

What a useful tool.

Trouble is...now I'm wondering what I'm being tagged me as?

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Social Networking, openBC,Ecademy,Wireless World Forum

Out in the open - platform development for openBC

2006-07-19T07:40:00.000Z

openBC are in the process of re-designing their site.

And they've started a competition to put forward a new design for the profile page. You can find our all about it at the openDesign Project.

There are a few sample profiles on the site, no one's submitted an entry yet, but it's still very early days. I'm sure that this initiative will gather pace and produce some interesting results.

Looking at one of the in-house designs (#3) I noticed that you can see how how many people are online, and how many of your direct contacts are also online. With Skype integration, that's a great way to "get back in touch" and just ping them to see how they are and what's new.

Obviously, it's a mock-up profile but gives some hints about future functionality.

It's also an interesting contrast this with LinkedIn's development approach which is much more behind closed doors. New features are hinted at, launched and you kind of stumble across them.

Let's see how things develop...

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Social Networking, openBC

List of Social Networking Sites

2006-07-13T06:12:00.000Z

Thanks to a posting on Ecademy, I was pointed to this great list of social networking sites on Wikipedia.

Now we have a central place to keep and eye on, plus it'll be interesting to see how the user counts change.

I just updated LinkedIn's user count to 6,000,000 - which is the current number shown on their site.

Interestingly, Ecademy says "unknown"...I'll have to dig out my copy of "A Friend In Every City" as I'm sure it tells you in there :-)

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Social Networking, Wikipedia

LinkedIn's New Update Profile Feature Rocks!

2006-07-09T11:50:00.000Z

The new profile updates feature on LinkedIn is one of their best for some time.

It's so simple, and gets around all the problems we had with update-SPAM (people would abuse the updated feature to just blatantly promote their business)

Now, when you log in, you can see who's recently updated their profile. You can click-thru and then see what's they've changed..new job, new focus, etc.

A simple feature that naturally facilitates the networking process. Well done, LinkedIn!

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

What's GoingOn at AlwaysOn?

2006-06-30T07:14:00.000Z

See, that's what happens when you go on holiday. You come back and someone's moved your online network!

I logged on to AlwaysOn, only to find a holding page saying that the network had now moved to GoingOn, which is apparently the "network of networks".

My previous profile, connections, etc have been wiped (or at least I can't find them) and AlwaysOn is now a sub-network within GoingOn.

Having recovered from this, and explored the site a little, it looks an interesting development.

Essentially, GoingOn allows you to create your own branded online network community. It's allows you to search networks by tags, incorporates blogging (both internally and externally) and already has 33 networks and 40,000+ members in beta.

Looks like one to watch. I shall explore further!

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, AlwaysOn

This Ecademy article is right on the money

2006-06-16T06:31:00.000Z

This article was posted yesterday on Ecademy and it is so on the money: 17.5 Get Rich Quick Secrets Guaranteed proven to work by the ten biggest corporations in the Known Universe

It's really caught the mood of many of the members because it's basically taking the p*** out of a growing trend on Ecademy.

Anyone who's read a "how to make a million in six months" or "the secrets of becoming an Internet billionaire" advert or web-page will be familiar with this approach. And, in recent months, there's been a growing number of members who are using the same style with their Marketplace Adverts.

Some point the finger to Fraser Hay and the Red Hand Gang. They just seem to be everywhere on the site at the moment and have certainly changed the feel of Ecademy (check out this blog thread). In fact, Fraser's Book "How to Make Money on Ecademy" is heavily promoted & seemingly endorsed on Ecademy (it's also free for Blackstar's and Annual PowerNetworkers).

I think we'll be seeing more of this banter on Ecademy. Should be good for a laugh.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Ecademy

Could it soon be time to remove your email address?

2006-06-15T06:50:00.000Z

It was interesting to read Konstantin's comments on a post recently that "if needed, we may suppress profiles from the search results where LinkedIn profile fileds (sic) are misused".

Although it's in the often quoted user agreement, a lot of people break the user conduct rule which states that you should not "Post content in fields that aren’t intended for that content. Example: Putting an address in a name or title field."

LinkedIn seem to turn a blind eye to this as Konstantin says, "this problem is not upsetting our members as much as unwelcome invitations".

But, at some point, this attitude may change and it's highly likely that LinkedIn will use a tactic like "profile suppression" for those who continue to break the rules.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

Ever wondered what happened at an Ecademy event?

2006-06-12T15:53:00.000Z

Ecademy have started running live Skypecasts of their London events.

I think this is a great move. It allows global members of Ecademy to see what's happening at the official London event and if you log on to the live Skypecast you can "chat" with fellow Ecademists. What an excellent way to extend the online networking experience. I'm planning to join the next Skypecast on 18th July so if you're there, let me know and we can chat in the back row. Shush! :-)

They have also archived videos of the presentations made at the last event on 6th June. You can watch them here.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Ecademy

6400+ contacts but only 3 friends

2006-06-09T07:47:00.000Z

I've been playing around on MySpace, just trying to get the feel for it, get my profile up and running, etc.

Anyway, thought I'd search for some "friends" to add...and that's where I hit a problem.

For a start, hardly anyone uses their real name there so when you search...how do you know who they are?

So I thought I'd upload my contacts and search for them by email. I'm not expecting many of my LinkedIn contacts to be there, different set of demographics, but worth a try.

Trouble is...I couldn't upload them. There were too many and MySpace just kinda broke. Ooops

So here I am...6400+ contacts on LinkedIn and 3 friends out of 70 million on MySpace (and one of those is the guy who automatically joins you when you sign up). Sad.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn, MySpace

Top Marks to Toplinked.com...just for fun ;-)

2006-06-08T09:55:00.000Z

I recently added myself to Toplinked.com (you can do that by adding "toplinked.com" somewhere on your LinkedIn profile and then posting a comment to their site).

I've posted about the site many times before and, when I added myself, I mentioned why this blog is called Linked 'n' 37.

As a gesture, they've re-ranked me to #37 with a footnote that "* Note that David Regler being listed as #37 (instead of as #38 where he currently is actually) is not a typo" :-)

These guys have a sense of humour. Actually, I say guys because no-one actually knows who runs this site...but I did some sleuthing and I think I have a pretty good idea.

Also, they've awarded Marc Freedman the "TopLinked Liar Award" as they have him currently ranked at #119 with around 3,600. But his profile says "Proud 17,000+ connections".

Marc always makes me smile...still looking forward to his 11 Dirty Little LinkedIn Secrets :-)

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

Eleven Dirty Little LinkedIn Secrets

2006-06-07T15:58:00.000Z

Every now and then something comes along that just grabs you. When Marc Freedman started promoting this teleseminar I just had to register.

Now, I don't know just what those 11 Dirty Little LinkedIn Secrets are going to be, and maybe I already know them, but I'm guessing it'll be an amusing call at least. And it's only $15 US...got to be worth it.

For those who don't know, Marc's probably one of the most controversial characters on LinkedIn (see my post "How (Not) to Get Banned from LinkedIn" ) so this should be fun...as long as LinkedIn don't stop it ;-)

Marc's running the teleseminar on Fri July 7 1pm CT.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

Inviting under the radar

2006-06-06T07:16:00.000Z

I'm not sure if it's anything to do with limits imposed on the number of invitations you can send, or maybe just because LinkedIn have started to come down on mass-invites, but I've noticed the following trend...

Rather than an invite being sent through LinkedIn, people have been sending me an email asking me to invite them or confirm I'm open to an invitation and then they'll invite me.

This is an interesting development as it gets around the accusation of using LinkedIn to SPAM, and therefore risking having your account suspended. Plus, you can't get declined or reported because you're not actually sending an invitation.

Using this method for blanket emails could still evoke LinkedIn's wrath if an accusation of SPAM gets back to them (I've noticed some people are doing this with emails taken from the LinkedIn LIONS group, all of whom are supposed to be "open" to receive unsolicited invitations) but, as a way of inviting people with their email address in their header it's a good strategy. Plus, it allows you to develop a dialogue outside of LinkedIn and, therefore, you're only inviting people that you already know.

Hey, we're getting close to LinkedIn's User Agreement here...careful now ;-)

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

Up to your limit? Have you been a good boy?

2006-06-02T07:08:00.000Z

Something that not many people have paid attention to is that, a while back, LinkedIn capped the number of invitations you can send for life at 3000.

Now, for most people, that's not an issue, particularly if you play by the rules. But for anyone who's been seriously inviting new contacts and taking full advantage of LinkedIn's own Outlook upload tools, then you've probably already exceeded this limit. (btw, those days are over!)

In that case, LinkedIn probably gave you 500 more to play with.

Want to check? Click on the big "add connections" button in the top right hand corner of the home page and then, on the next page, you'll see a note on the right hand side "Please note: You can send XXX more invitations." (the XXX being how many you have left).

But, fear not, if you run out of this final allotted amount you can apply for more.

In a recent Yahoo!Group post, Konstantin explained the procedure:

If feedback from invitees has been average or above from mass inviters, the limit gets raised 500 invitations at a time. You don't have to be a model citizen.

It's 200 if users are just below the average and 100 if they are way below--the 100 are there basically to demonstrate that users are willing to target invitees more carefully and write more compelling invitation messages (resulting in higher acceptance rates and fewer complaints/declines).

So there you have it. If you keep your nose clean, don't get too many complaints or declines, you can get another 500.

I like Konstantin's phrase "You don't have to be a model citizen." :-)

LinkedIn know they have a number of people on their network who, maybe in the early days, helped LinkedIn grow by inviting thousands. Now they've got the numbers, they need to reign these people in otherwise, in LinkedIn's view, this same element could drive away the people already there.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

LinkedIn Reaches 6 Million...let's look at the numbers.

2006-05-31T07:20:00.000Z

Ok, maybe I'm being a bit of a geek here...

Back in March I posted about an interview by Konstantin Guericke where he said that LinkedIn "are adding one million new members every three months"

Back then they had 5.5 Million users, now yesterday, Konstantin announces their 6 millionth member. So, between 29th March and 30th May (2 months) they've added 500,000?

I suspect that they only update the official tally in half-million chunks - oooooh, how Ecademy would love to do that ;-)

Back in July 2005, Konstantin was commenting on this post (OpenBC bigger than LinkedIn?) that they "add 500k new users every two months" and, at that time, in this interview we have the number of members listed at 3.2 million.

In this post in Jan 2006, we have a figure of around 4 million, which was taken off the LinkedIn front page.

So, from July 2005 to Jan 2006 LinkedIn went from around 3 million to 4 million in 6 months. Then, from Jan 2006 to June 2006 (the next 6 months) it has added another 2 million, which is pretty much in line with Konstantin's comment "one million new members every three months".

As you can see, it's certainly accelerating and I think they've hit a tipping point.

I've heard that LinkedIn expect 10 million by the end of the year. They'll have to double their current rate of growth to do that...but, hey, look at MySpace.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

LinkedIn Deja Vu?

2006-05-22T12:31:00.000Z

I picked this up today from a recent Yahoo!Group Post...a real Deja Vu moment.

A company called Fast Pitch! has launched a new platform that seems to be a profile based service, in a similar vein to Ziggs, in that it offers a searchable profile that is indexed by Google (you can get this anyway from the main business networking sites, such as LinkedIn and Ecademy - see Web Profiles On Google)

Anyway, what's aroused interest is that the site has a very similar look and feel to LinkedIn (tabs, buttons, icons, etc).

Is this just a copycat or is LinkedIn providing a white-label platform in a similar move to openBC? (see academici)

What I found amusing was that their "fast pitch" on the site was "For as little as $4.95 per month, Fast Pitch! guarantees your Profile will receive top placement within the world's largest search engine."

They invite you to test it out by typing "Jon Witte" into a google search box

"As you can see" they tell you "Jon's Fast Pitch! Profile is the most visible search result returned and it is the only result that actually reflects Jon."

Err..sorry, when I did it "Jon Witte" didn't even appear on the first page.

Perhaps he's stopped paying his $4.95 ;-)

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn, Fast Pitch

Joined the New Forbes Groups yet?

2006-05-19T07:34:00.000Z

If you, like me, only signed up for the one Forbes group...and then wondered how you could sign up for more: here's the link:

http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=promo_forbes

Thanks to Chris's post on The Social Network Portal for the link.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn, Forbes

LinkedIn Co-Brands With Forbes

2006-05-18T07:53:00.000Z

When I booted up LinkedIn this morning I found an invite in my InBox to join a new Forbes group.

Hmmm...always interested in new ways to expand my access to contacts so, what the hey, I signed up.

Later, I discover from a Yahoo! Group post by Konstantin that LinkedIn has entered into a partnership with Forbes and that, by joining the group, my "LinkedIn home page will be co-branded by Forbes" and "will have a Forbes RSS feed on [my] home page".

So far, no co-branding...but I'm sure it's coming. Slightly worrying is the comment that "I'm not sure you can get rid off these things later" ????

Oh well, I'm sure LinkedIn's good taste won't let it become like MySpace.com. Last time I logged on the whole homepage was branded X-Men.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn, Forbes