Even though I recently and publically quit my account at LinkedIn, I continue to receive requests from well-meaning (I guess) people asking me to connect through the service. While I can decline each request, there is no way to universally block requests -- unless you create an account and turn off all requests! As a non-member, you have to resort to declining over and over again.

It makes sense, in a curious sort of way, since without an account and an explicit agreement LinkedIn doesn't have anyway to police requests to me on my behalf.

I propose that all of these services should support "no-accounts" -- a means for people like me who a/ do not want to use the service to register as non-users, and b/ create a generic message to respond to requests like those I am getting from LinkedIn.

In my case, my no-account message would be something like "I have recently dropped out of sales- and jobs-oriented social networks like LinkedIn. If you want to network with me, send me an email at stowe.boyd -AT- gmail.com, and let's see what makes sense."

Even if I found the services personally rewarding -- and I haven't -- I believe that the development of a partitioned world with dozens of private, non-interoperable networks is a big mistake. I welcome the vision of a 'peopleweb' as Mark Pincus styles it (see here), where individuals 'announce' through some as-yet-undefined social medium (perhaps extensions to the now-familiar blog metaphor?) what sorts of connections they are hoping to make in the world. And individuals could use as-yet-undefined search technologies to discover those with shared interests, goals, or complementary needs. But it would occur in a public space, like blogs are now, not in private spaces owned and operated by entrepreneurs hoping to charge $4.95/month for accounts or 10% commission on deals made.