
How LinkedIn screwed up our friendship - kumarski
http://kirillzubovsky.com/linkedin-screwed-up-our-friendship/
======
pallandt
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
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
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.

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smedawar
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.

~~~
kirillzubovsky
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
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.

~~~
notahacker
The former is strategy is user-friendly. The latter strategy is metric-which-
impresses-investors friendly. There's a reason social networks spam more than
Viagra merchants.

~~~
001sky
_There 's a reason social networks spam more than Viagra merchants._

LinkedIn is pretty bad on this. Just when you think youve opted out of every
mailing list, its seems like they invent or create some new 'feature' which
opts you in. Again.

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GrinningFool
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.

~~~
tobyjsullivan
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

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

~~~
morgante
LinkedIn _is_ networking.

~~~
Bahamut
It's a removed form though. In person networking is far superior.

~~~
fecak
I'd disagree that in-person networking is superior for most. Many are much
more comfortable making those positive first impressions online because they
are less comfortable in face-to-face settings. Thankfully, by the time they
are required to meet with others, they already have gained some points through
their online interactions.

The need to physically meet people has become much less important, and
reputation seems to be the difference. There are probably hundreds of people
on HN who have received work from people before meeting them live, and perhaps
were even referred by people they've never met live.

------
morgante
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
> _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
u forgot the closing snark tag </snark> ;)

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

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lhnz
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
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
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...

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

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

------
jenntoda
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
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).

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inDigiNeous
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
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.

~~~
inDigiNeous
Thank you for the clarification.

------
eanderson522
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

~~~
kirillzubovsky
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 :)

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

~~~
joelby37
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.

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wrongc0ntinent
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
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."

~~~
wrongc0ntinent
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.

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PakG1
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.

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andrew_wc_brown
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.

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happywolf
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.

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rayiner
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...](http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/do_linkedin_endorsements_violate_legal_ethics).

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elwell
The author looks like Larry Page.

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

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kimonos
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.

------
menriquez
LinkedIn is a virus.

