How LinkedIn screwed up our friendship

http://kirillzubovsky.com/linkedin-screwed-up-our-friendship/

by kumarski • 13 years ago

85 59 13 years ago

smedawar• 13 years ago

Great post.

LinkedIn needs to stop focusing on raw numbers and work on quality engagement. As a recruiter, I have had a policy of accepting any request over the years, and it has resulted in 10100 connections and almost no engagement. I almost only go to LI to accept my requests. The most value LI has provided has been as a directory and having accepted 10k+ requests, I now have a very open and thorough directory. If I was trying to use the site for anything else, it would be a mess.

I think there's a lot of opportunity for them to fix this (and they probably will), but it seems like they're focusing on growth first.

kirillzubovsky3• 13 years ago

Post author here. Thanks for the comment.

I just got a response to on Twitter from @grayj_ , saying "Making a KPI go up will often get you a bonus or a promotion; advocating good UX won't."

However sad, I suspect this is the reality of LinkedIn being a large and slow corporation. Unfortunately :(

benmanns• 13 years ago

Why not make % accepted requests the KPI instead of # sent requests? The former would encourage a message for every request. The latter encourages mass emails to address books, accidental requests, etc.

pscsbs• 13 years ago

Hi, engineer at LinkedIn here.

As much as it might seem corporate propaganda, LinkedIn really emphasizes a "members first" attitude in engineering. Engineers frequently get commended for decreasing spam, improving UX, and securing member data.

I guarantee this post will be reviewed tomorrow, and we'll discuss how to improve the flow for connecting with new LinkedIn members from the "People You May Know" feature.

Please keep the feedback coming. :)

VLM• 13 years ago

"almost no engagement."

I was just recently thinking that I hadn't logged into linkedin since 2012 or 2011, and I've done some things to add to my resume. I assume a less than 1% chance what I do, would interest you.

If you run the math, 10K / (2 x 365) * 0.01 * 7 means your almost no engagement should be quantified to about one interesting thing per week, plus or minus a couple orders of magnitude. So its statistically believable.

"roughly one interesting thing per week" does translate to multiple billions of value in TV and music and movie biz, so its valuation is not entirely outta line.

GrinningFool• 13 years ago

INterestingly, I revisited linkedin today and found it an improvement that I didn't have to look at the boilerplate text and/or update it to send a request.

I don't send requests to people who won't recognize me, so I much prefer avoiding the extra step when 'connecting'.

That said, I still haven't found a meaningful, practical use for LinkedIn. So far it just nets me self-styled ninja recruiters haranguing me based on keyword searches, which is just irritating.

mathattack• 13 years ago

I deal with a lot of people external to my company, so LinkedIn is a gold mine for me. Since it also takes a reminder for folks to remember me, I do like typing in some text. I also appreciate it when others return the favor.

gdickie• 13 years ago

The last time I was looking for work, LinkedIn was useful. I heard of a company that sounded like a good match. LinkedIn found a 2nd-level connection working there, and an interview resulted.

tobyjsullivan2• 13 years ago

I got 3/4 offers on my last job hunt through past co-workers that re-opened communication on LinkedIn. The 4th offer was through a recruiter who contacted me on linked in.

That's what LinkedIn is for, really. I don't know how people find tech jobs without it. Apply? Hah

Bahamut2• 13 years ago

Network! I got my current job without applying at all, without LinkedIn, and without a resume.

nathancahill• 13 years ago

People don't find tech jobs, tech jobs find you. If your resume or email address is online and even vaguely associated with the chance that you might developer, your inbox gets flooded with recruiter spam.

tommccabe• 13 years ago

I've done this, myself. It is really easy to accidentally hit this connect button when swiping on the iPad.

joelby37• 13 years ago

I concur - a few months ago I used the mobile Web site on an iPhone. I was idly scrolling around the "People You May Know" list while distracted. I noticed that if you merely scrolled the page by swiping and your finger happened to start on top of someone's profile, it would immediately invite that person to connect without any confirmation.

It was a pretty horrifying realisation that I'd become one of those random inviters - now I have much more sympathy to people I've never heard of inviting me to connect! I refuse to use the mobile site again, so I haven't checked if it's been fixed.

bsirkia2• 13 years ago

LinkedIn is definitely a funny beast. My favorite thing about it is that, unlike other social networks in my life, it's only there when I need it and I don't check it compulsively. If I want to check if I know someone at Company X because they might be interested in something to do with my professional life, I can hop on LinkedIn and see if I know anyone there or have a connection. I never go to LinkedIn otherwise, so I have no problem connecting with anyone and everyone.

Facebook and Twitter, on the other hand, I check multiple times a day to make sure I'm not missing something "important" in the firehose, which just wastes tons of time.

hkmurakami• 13 years ago

LinkedIn is trying to become one of those compulsive check services though, with their upstart blog and news thing they've started recently.

bsirkia2• 13 years ago

They definitely are, I'm going to do my best to fight the urge.

jenntoda2• 13 years ago

It's convenient to just blame LinkedIn for a friendship you evidently didn't have to start with. Nothing stops you from writing an email to the person first or immediately after you hit the "connect" button. Don't blame your own laziness on a tool.

poopsintub• 13 years ago

Lazy blogger rant imo. You're making business connections on linkedin, not connecting with friends to gossip, post memes, and keep fake friendships going (yet).

pallandt• 13 years ago

I don't know anyone personally that uses LinkedIn as a medium for establishing a friendship.

People already have Facebook for that, or even Twitter, Tumblr, Google+ and so on. I generally never turn down connection requests from LinkedIn (even if I don't know the person) unless the requester is interested in ridiculous stuff such as 'advancing our careers by giving each other endorsements'. Yes, someone specifically sent me such a message and it made me remove them from my connection list.

I've also connected with quite a lot of people I 'met' through various Coursera courses I took and that seemed smart/interesting, but not with the intention of friending them. They sometimes make insightful comments to LinkedIn groups they're subscribed...I can read this in the Updates section. Sometimes they launch new business ventures and I'm happy for them they put the Startup Engineering course to good use. None of these people have bothered me with anything, but I have the opportunity to learn something by watching them evolve.

ameoba• 13 years ago

So we all know that everyone is on LinkedIn & every recruiter in the world is spamming us with invites but who the fuck actually uses it & gets any value out of it?

10098• 13 years ago

Well I landed my current job after responding to a linkedin request. True, it happened after a long and twisted series of events, but the linkedin message was the catalyst.

jes• 13 years ago

I wound up getting a six month gig because someone I worked for 15 years ago saw that I had just quit another job.

But yeah, I think I know what you mean, because I have used it for a long time.

fmavituna• 13 years ago

How is that working for you in the long term? I've got 600+ pending requests that I haven't accepted because I don't know them. At the same time couldn't bring myself to ignore or reject them either so they are "pending".

So I'm really curious about the advantages and disadvantages of accepting everyone and having lots of connections (i.e. 1000+) in LinkedIn.

chaostheory• 13 years ago

This is why I quit Linkedin a long time ago. Most of the requests were from people I've never even met.

morgante3• 13 years ago

This is a totally nonsensical post. If you're not friends with the person, the ability to write a small post about it isn't going to change that. If you are friends with them, then the lack of a message doesn't matter.

As for following up after conferences and such, the proper protocol is an email.

benihana• 13 years ago

As for following up after conferences and such, the proper protocol is an email.

Oh it is? Cool! Okay guys, morgante solved all our communication problems. All you have to do is go on the internet and tell people what the proper protocol is for communicating and everything else will work itself out.

Guess what. I don't want people emailing me after a conference. I'd much rather they get a hold of me in other ways, like twitter, or facebook or linkedin. And what a surprise, your preferred method of communication is different from mine. It's almost like different people have different preferences and something that works for you may not work for other people. And maybe you shouldn't go around making arrogant proclamations about what the proper way to do something is cause people are probably going to disagree with you. What a concept!

tjtrapp• 13 years ago

u forgot the closing snark tag </snark> ;)

regardless, i agree that my preference can be different than others.

neumann• 13 years ago

and yet there is such a thing as proper protocol - etiquette dictated by the community. In academic circles it is indeed email sent from your academic account. morgante doesn't make the rules...

dwaltrip• 13 years ago

I love when the world divides into two perfectly neat buckets just like that.

inDigiNeous2• 13 years ago

F*ck you LinkedIn. I Don't even have an account there, and they keep spamming me with invites from people. I thought maybe these were coming from some phisher site, but seems that they are actually doing it themselves.

sp332• 13 years ago

Every time someone lets LinkedIn look at their address book to "find contacts you already know in linkedin", LI takes it upon themselves to spam everyone in that address book. I guess there's an opt out somewhere. One time I had to add a woman's email to my account as a secondary address so it would stop spamming her, we couldn't find any other way to do it.

inDigiNeous2• 13 years ago

Thank you for the clarification.

eanderson522• 13 years ago

And it's even worse. I saw this post and went to LinkedIn to accept the friendship. I think the only way to do it is to click on the link from the email which I had deleted. I didn't see ANY page on LinkedIn with outstanding friend requests. -Ethan Anderson

tedunangst• 13 years ago

Top right corner of the web site, there's a few icons. Click on the envelope looking one.

jenntoda2• 13 years ago

Mailbox icon (4th icon from top right). Either check the drop down list or if you click through, look for the invitations tab.

kirillzubovsky3• 13 years ago

Thanks for accepting! Doing a startup, I can see how these things are easy to miss/forget. In fact, I ran into just the same issue with Medium today, where posts that were added to my collection are nowhere to be found, except for email. @Medium got back and told me they haven't developed the interface yet. Fair point, I almost expect that from a company that's growing and constantly iterating. But given the size and maturity of LIN, one would hope for a better experience. Glad you found the link after all :)

wrongc0ntinent2• 13 years ago

Good post. It's actually pretty clear this is in the design though. I don't know of any languages where "connect" means "send email (including to people you may admire professionally but only met once in your life, if that". The "+" might be the only thing keeping that button away from complete misrepresentation.

Raphmedia• 13 years ago

Most of the time on Linkedin, you can write a little text when you add someone. You click add, then you and write something like "We talked at x about y and I liked our conversation, let's connect."

wrongc0ntinent2• 13 years ago

I understand, but at this point you'd expect some sort of intelligent flow in the platform. You definitely wouldn't expect to have an adversarial relationship with it, which is exactly what happens when they take advantage of your trust in their UX. Why would "+connect" imply sending email invitations? If they re-purpose terminology they should be very clear about it, to the point where it's understood. I'm not shooting down the concept or the content, but it becomes immediately clear where they're coming from, to their detriment.

lhnz• 13 years ago

Why do people take LinkedIn so seriously? I will accept stranger's requests if I think they could provide some kind of useful service to me now or in the future.

I'm not maintaining a list of important relationships on it. It's a rolodex to me and a business card can and should be added to it whether or not we've done business already.

This idea of carefully pruning your connections seems quite popular. To those that do it, what's the upside? (The upside to letting almost everybody connect is that, if in 5 years I need to contact somebody or they need me it might be a little easier for us to get in touch.)

markolschesky• 13 years ago

I always want to be able to respond with an actual answer if someone asks me "Do you know 'x', you are connected with her/him on LinkedIn". Otherwise, it's really just a waste of both of our times since I think improving your connections with the people that you know somewhat well is the true key to using LinkedIn well. That connection could be as simple as "I met them briefly at a conference", but it can't be non-existent.

acjohnson55• 13 years ago

I feel the same way. Honestly, I meet a lot of people briefly at events and don't always recognize their names or profile pics. I greatly appreciate it if someone can simply say "nice meeting you at X the other night". It's LinkedIn's fault for not really encouraging more authentic connections and instead, pandering to the volume connectors. Between lack of utility and overall creepiness, I fairly frequently consider just closing my account. One of these days...

tobyjsullivan2• 13 years ago

I keep my LinkedIn relatively pruned because I think (probably unrealistically) that a profile with less fluff is slightly more credible. That, and I have mild OCD.

xlayn• 13 years ago

very profound analysis of a button (sarcasm) with a catchy title...... NEXT!!

kimonos• 13 years ago

Sad to say, this is one of the disadvantages of Social Media... But for me, a true and strong friendship can't be screwed up by just this.

elwell• 13 years ago

The author looks like Larry Page.

andrew_wc_brown• 13 years ago

I don't use LinkedIn or have a résumé because I think both are a waste of time and I don't care. Its great to be a programmer where the job market is in such demand you have the option of not doing the following above.

menriquez• 13 years ago

LinkedIn is a virus.

rayiner• 13 years ago

None of Linked-In's magic is helpful. Something I just realized today about those annoying unsolicited endorsements: http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/do_linkedin_endorseme....

PakG1• 13 years ago

I think the wording is wrong here. The post makes a lot more sense if you replace the word "friendship" with "relationship". It is quite possible that's what the author actually intended to say, but for whatever reason (brain cramp, poor English, whatever), ended up writing "friendship" instead.

happywolf• 13 years ago

I used to be quite liberal in accepting connections, but someday I realize a lot of useless connections is worse than lack of connections. For example, when you need endorsement, will you ask some random person for one? Will you feel safe and secure to share your personal stuff, even if it is work-related? I make it my policy to only accept invitations from people whom I know, or headhunters/recruiters.

How LinkedIn screwed up our friendship

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