
Fallen out of love with LinkedIn? - ckarltorp
http://www.swiss-miss.com/2011/08/zerply.html
======
redwood
I still use LinkedIn b/c well it's the market leader.

However I do have one thing to vent about: LinkedIn uses a phishing technique
after you're logged in by showing you your email address and then a password
field which makes it very easy for you to mindlessly input your email password
(as they want) so they can spam all your contacts.

I've been saved from this mistake many times by having different LinkedIn and
Gmail passwords, but this really shouldn't be acceptable...

~~~
davedx
I deleted my LinkedIn account several months ago because the value is gave me,
as a professional, did not outweigh the buggy site with its highly dubious
strategies. I've received one job offer through the site in the years I've
been on it, but I've also been spammed to death by emails that I couldn't turn
off and had made something like a hundred connections to people that I mostly
will never actually need to be 'connected' to ever again.

I think there is value to be found in a professional networking / career site,
but for me, LinkedIn did not cut it.

~~~
motters
I'm also considering deleting my Linkedin account and just moving the same
biographical info to my own web site.

------
SomeCallMeTim
Zerply may be the best thing since sliced bread in its design, but _I'm_ not
going to be the one to spam all of my business connections with yet-another-
social-network.

If I started getting lots of invites from people I trusted, then I might
consider joining. But I'd never even heard of them before reading this
article.

LinkedIn goofed up ONCE in allowing your face in ads when you have some
connection to the company. That's nowhere near as slimy as Facebook putting
your face on ads you'd never even CLICKED on (famously a woman saw her HUSBAND
in a picture advertising a singles site...), and that's just the tip of
Facebook's privacy betrayals.

And since LinkedIn has a totally dominant market share (and mind share) in
"business connections," it's going to likely take a lot more than a better
design and easy import to dethrone them.

It looks like the hook is "use us to host your online resume! We'll make it
pretty!" That approach has some potential; I'll keep my eyes open for a
Zerply-hosted resume moving forward.

~~~
nbm
Are you referring to this advert where a husband saw his wife's picture
advertising a singles site - <http://mashable.com/2009/07/17/facebook-dating-
ads-2/>

In this case, it was not Facebook who put that picture there, but an
advertiser, who got and used that picture in a way that was against Facebook's
Terms of Service, and Facebook then blocked that advertiser.

~~~
reso
But this is the internet, where anything which in any way involves Facebook is
Facebook's fault, and, furthermore, was completely intentional and malicious.

------
antimarketing
Isn't this an obvious marketing play by people behind Zerply?

edit: Look at the one line positive comments that appeared straight after
posting this article. Really funny.

Besides the general attention that an article like this gives this is also a
perfect SEO tool.

Personally, what I think that these dudes are doing is building a linking
pyramid that passes on the famed Google juice from Y Combinator (PR 7) via the
blog article (contextual links, a big thing after the Google Panda update) to
their own site.

Anyone can find person X to write a semi-beliveable article about their
service or tool and submit it here. Clever stuff but not clever enough.

Actually, kind of dumb, because sooner or later, people running this message
board will have to rethink what types of articles can be linked to.

~~~
EponymousCoward
LOL. Welcome to the Internet. Guess you've never heard of Swiss Miss before.

------
bradly
Does anyone actually get any value out of LinkedIn? I've had an account for
years and the only thing its done for me is sell my email to recruiters.

~~~
hugh3
I sit around hoping that they'll sell my email to recruiters. Y'know, for a
job I actually want.

I've only had _one_ recruiter approach me in several years on linkedin (and
even he didn't have anything more interesting to sell me than DE Shaw, who had
already collected my resume for their "Hey look how many people we reject"
pile).

~~~
ryanpetrich
LinkedIn is like dating sites in that a small fraction of the candidates get a
majority of the attention.

~~~
msellout
I think the key is having experience at a major corporation (Dow Jones 30 or
equivalent profile). After I listed that, I went from no contacts to once
every month or two.

------
scottw
Anyone else have a problem with their T&C? Essentially, "you post it here, we
get to do whatever we want with it":

> "By placing any information or other material on such publicly accessible
> locations on the Website (including but not limited to posting messages,
> uploading files, inputting data or engaging in any other form of
> communication), you automatically grant (or warrant that the owner of such
> content has expressly granted) to Zerply a perpetual, royalty-free, non-
> exclusive, irrevocable, unrestricted, worldwide license to use, copy,
> sublicense, reproduce, distribute, redistribute, modify, adapt, publish,
> edit, translate, transmit, create derivative works of, publish and/or
> broadcast, publicly perform or display any materials or other information
> (including without limitation, ideas contained therein for new or improved
> products or services) you submit to public areas of the Website (including
> but not limited to chat rooms, forums and bulletin boards) alone or as part
> of other works in any form, media, or technology whether by any means and in
> any media now known or hereafter developed and to sublicense such rights
> through multiple tiers of sublicenses."

~~~
SpikeGronim
The key phrase that makes this T&C fine is "... [that] you submit to public
areas of the Website". This is a standard clause that means "don't sue us for
copyright infringement when we publish the content you asked us to publish."
IANAL.

~~~
scottw
I don't think that's what it means... I've read many T&C (IANAL either) and
some of them state, to the effect of, "your stuff stays yours, even if you put
it on our site". That, to me, would be closer to "we're not responsible for
your copyright infringements."

Just because I post something publicly doesn't make it publicly owned (or in
this case, owned by the host)—I want to retain the copyright to my works, and
this T&C says "nope, we own whatever you post here."

In the end, it was too much for me, and I didn't complete the signup process.
If I'm completely wrong about it's meaning or intent, well, _shrug_ , they
should write T&C that you don't have to be a lawyer to grok.

------
sliverstorm
LinkedIn is like my credit score. I have no use for it now, but I might need
it one day, and having it ready for One Day requires less than 30 seconds of
thought/week.

------
jleader
I went to zerply, clicked on a url in one of their testimonials, saw a page
where I had to scroll waaaay down to get past all the huge header text and
pointless graphics to read a few small snippets about the person. Then I
clicked on the person's link to linkedin, and immediately got much more
information about them, without pointless "I'm so hip" graphic over-design.

LinkedIn isn't perfect, but I use it for the following purposes:

To find out about companies (who do I know who works there? how big are is the
company? what sort of people do they employ?)

To find out about potential co-workers (job applicants, or interviewers when
I'm on the other side of the desk, or people I meet other ways): who do we
know in common (maybe someone I know who's worked with them can tell me how
they were), what else have they done, etc.

Some of their discussion groups are interesting, some are useless.

I haven't yet used them for job hunting, but I expect eventually I may. I have
used them for background research on a company I was already considering
working for.

I don't go to LinkedIn for the "beauty" of their design, I go there for
information. I don't need "profile pages themed by world-class designers" for
that.

------
jaysonelliot
The Zerply 404 page is a wonderful example of why details matter.

<http://www.zerply.com/foobar>

Poor spelling shouts "limited resources and lack of professionalism" loud and
clear. If you're asking people to trust you with their data and put time into
profiles, you need to show that you're big and serious.

I don't use LinkedIn because it's the coolest kid on the block, I use it
because I need to find people to hire, network with, and in the past I've
needed it to find gigs and jobs.

I'm going to go where the most people are, and where I feel most confident
that my data will be managed professionally.

I'm not going to jump ship for a startup just because LinkedIn is requiring me
to opt out if I don't want my picture to appear near an ad. That's not
Armageddon, it's just a minor, and ultimately inconsequential, annoyance.

~~~
liquidcool
If you're referring to "Oh noes!", that's more of a meme than poor spelling.

Personally, I think there aren't enough sites with a personality and sense of
humor. I get the point that the very serious career types will not appreciate
this, but they might not be Zerply's target audience. I'll also point out that
the home page looks fine, nothing silly there. It seems they are just trying
to diffuse tension on an error page with humor.

~~~
jaysonelliot
I'm not referring to "oh noes," I know the difference between intentional
colloquialisms and misspellings.

I'm referring to the repeated use of "your" instead of the correct word,
"you're."

~~~
BudVVeezer
Which appears to have already been fixed. I wonder if LinkedIn would fix that
in < 45 minutes if you found a typo and posted about it here on HN.

------
jph
LinkedIn is the surprise of the year for me-- I had pretty much written it off
a couple years back, but it turns out that LinkedIn is incredibly helpful for
connecting with my company's technology partners, potential hires, and
business advisors.

------
blatherard
I've recently found LinkedIn quite valuable as a tool for doing Customer
Development. There's a wide range of people on it, not just techies and
designers, many of whom (I've found) are pretty open to helping someone out
who isn't trying to recruit or hard-sell them.

------
neovive
LinkedIn definitely has its good and not so good parts, but overall it's an
excellent tool for startups. It's great for business development, seeking out
strategic partnerships, and reaching out to other professionals in your
industry. It's also a great reality check for web startups with little
experience in their specific verticals; you can almost instantly communicate
with experienced professionals to measure demand, get feedback and even new
customers. There's nothing out there that can match it for now.

Also, where else can you find so many "Social Media Marketing Experts" in one
place ;).

------
Chirael
I hate LinkedIn with a passion, always have. It just seems like an old, kludgy
online dating site (like Match). I never use it unless I have to, and I
_still_ can't figure out how to turn off their damned weekly emails - they
have no easy unsubscribe option and I've gone to their "notification
management" (or whatever it's called) area in my account several times,
without any clear option to turn off the emails (wtf?!).

------
MrKurtHaeusler
Another LinkedIn alternative worth mentioning is Xing:

<https://www.xing.com/>

No affiliation, I have an account, and use it more than LinkedIn.

------
miles_matthias
I don't use LinkedIn very often. I just keep it updated with my info just in
case someone is looking for someone with my skill set. It's a pretty good idea
I think too for stuffy business types, and they are constantly surprising me
on their use of HTML5 and great startup/founder posts.

------
cpeterso
Is LinkedIn anything more than just craigslist for resumes? For whatever
reason, the virtuous circle of recruiters and resumes settled on LinkedIn. You
don't go to LinkedIn because it's good; you go there because everyone else
goes there.

------
m0tive
What always irritates me about linkedin is its patching https support. Looks
like it's completely absent on Zerply <https://www.zerply.com/>

------
motters
I was never in love with it to begin with. In fact having had an account there
for years, with various biographical details, I've gotten very little value
out of that site.

------
kerryusry
I love the video about everyone having to be on LinkedIn but they can't answer
the question what it does for them.

------
keypusher
LinkedIn is on track to become the MySpace of professional networking.

------
beedogs
Time to change my LinkedIn picture to lemonparty.

------
hiss
Zerply is LinkedIn for creative people. Suits and propeller-heads won't like
it.

It'll do well.

~~~
wyclif
That's my #1 criticism of LinkedIn: everything about it screams corporate,
from the design all the way down to the behaviours it encourages. They need to
really simplify the design and make it sleek and visually interesting.

------
raychancc
Zerply is totally AWESOME.

------
iamhenry
People really use these web sites?

~~~
justyle
Yeah, quite a lot actually. You might also want to check out broadband and wi-
fi, also very popular.

------
alexkiwi
Really love these guys, the endorsements have so much meaning compared to
connections. Keep up the great work team Zerply!!!

~~~
thomasknoll
Agree that endorsements are extremely valuable in a professional network. And,
making it much easier to weigh in on endorsing someone should increase this
activity. I also might not be willing to endorse every aspect of a person, (so
would be unwilling to write out a paragraph of endorsing them), but I would be
willing to endorse the one aspect of their professionalism I am willing to put
my own name behind.

~~~
jimmyjay
In the same vein, I'd rather endorse a particular ability or skill someone has
than an entire position they held like LinkedIn makes you do. In an economy
where we have periodic high unemployment, your skills are more important than
how long you have held a particular job.

------
kerryusry
I am looking forward to seeing what Zerply can do now that they have our
attention.

------
emehrkay
I got tired of the constant email updates about who is connected to whom and
people that I should be connected with (yeah, I know you can turn that off,
but ehh *linkedin offered no value to me) so I closed my account.

I must give them koodos on how easy they make closing an account.

