I’ve been using LinkedIn since the early days and would pitt the effectiveness and value of my online social network there against anyone. I’ve been a big fan for a very long time, but I am starting to question whether or not it has any value. I say this for two really important reasons:
1. It takes about as long to load a page as Windows Vista takes to boot up. Seriously! LinkedIn needs to get their system’s performance up to modern standards. Don’t even get me started about how long it takes to reach through and connect with someone….more on this in my next point
2. The other reason is that the social networking has been neglected in the name of lead generation. Many of these people call themselves LION’s (LinkedIn Open Networkers), but I will just call them lazy networkers. They are content to send a form letter or generic message to people asking them to connect with them. They don’t even send invites any longer (to LinkedIn’s credit they cut off unlimited invites), thy just bother people by sending notes like the one below:
“Hello,
I am reaching out to you as a fellow Mylink500 open networker (or recruitingblogs.com member for that list). I would love to connect with you to share networks. I do understand that you might choose not to accept my invitation.. I appreciate your time and consideration. Click here to invite me to connect on LinkedIn.”
Hmm…. I don’t know this person, I could not care less about this guy’s networks (I’m a member of recruitingblogs.com, but as of this message I’m thinking of it more as a spam widget than a site that adds value). Why on earth would I want to connect with this person? I guess he didn’t think about that.
So back to what I was saying, I think that LinkedIn really needs to take a pitt stop and figure out how to a) speed things up, and b) spam filter more effectively. If they don’t then they are going to find themselves facing a slow an silent death as users stop visiting.
