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December 11, 2003
Esther Dyson on LinkedIn and Social Network Etiquette
Posted by Stowe Boyd
Looks like Esther Dyson has been fiddling with the social networking products, and she likes LinkedIn best, although she has some reservations about getting requests to be friends:
"I am getting a lot of invitations from people I don't know. It would be great to have a button that says "See inviter's profile" that links directly from the confirm-or decline-invitation page.
Also, on the invitations page, the service should include some advice: "Do not invite people who do not know you. If you are not sure, at least give them a hint of who you are ... how you met, etc. If you are not sure or that effort is too much work for a particular person, perhaps you do not know that person well enough."
My sense is that people are starting to invite everyone in their address book. That may goose statistics, but the key is the signal, not the noise. ANd, of course, too much noise will drown out the signal..."
Comments (2)
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1. Erik Huddleston on December 12, 2003 12:13 PM writes...
I totally agree with your comments on LinkedIn. If you aren't interested in the signal to noise ratio, Spoke or ZeroDegrees is a better tool.
Permalink to Comment2. Konstantin Guericke on March 3, 2004 01:42 AM writes...
When you upload your address book, LinkedIn does clearly state that not every contact makes a good connections and offers a 3-point test:
"When you invite a friend or colleague, be sure they would make a good connection for you.
Only invite those you know well
You may be asked to tell one of your trusted friends more about the person you invite. And they may have to do the same for you.
Only invite those you trust
Sometimes you’ll forward a request (either yours, or from a friend) through them. Be sure you trust them to represent you, and to be careful with a potentially serious request.
Only invite those you want to forward things to you
Your connections will forward you requests from other members. Be sure the people you invite know you well enough to send you only things you are interested in."
We also have strong language discouraging users to accept invitations from people they don't know and trust. I think having this control over your connections (and not having your uploaded contacts be exposed in searches without their permission) are two key factors that have helped LinkedIn gain a 10x larger user base than Spoke and ZeroDegrees combined.
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