LinkedIn is a network for making business contacts. It has over 9 million users and is lauded by many (Guy Kawasaki, for example) as a great way to keep track of your business connections. I’ve registered for a LinkedIn account some months ago, but I’ve never had the time to really try out the service. Now I’ve gotten back to it, but I was somewhat disappointed.
After I logged in, absolutely everything I’ve tried to do pointed me to an ‘Upgrade’ link. Furthermore, when I open my account settings, the word ‘Upgrade’ is mentioned three times in the upper 30% of the page. I’m being forced to upgrade for every basic feature, like connecting to people or even just sending introductions.
All this isn’t all that clear when you first sign up for the service. It’s not what they say on the front page: “LinkedIn is free to join. Create your profile and make 5 connections in 5 minutes”. Yes, ONLY 5 connections. And those 5 connections are sent via an e-mail invitation. Sounds like I’m doing free advertising for them instead of simply sending regular e-mails.
I’m sure that this business model works pretty well: people see LinkedIn as an opportunity to get a job (or a better job) and make important connections, and when faced with paying a reasonable fee many will choose the upgrade option instead of giving up on the service.
There’s nothing wrong with charging for a service, especially if it’s good. Actually, I like to see internet companies being successful with a business model other than slapping a couple of AdSense ads. But I like to be told clearly: this is a paid service. You have to pay to use it. Somehow, LinkedIn’s approach annoys me much more than if I were told upfront that the service is not free.
Actually, you can have a network of hundreds on LinkedIn for free.
The ‘5 invitations’ is different to having 5 connections.
It means that you can invite up to 5 people at a time. When they say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to your invitation to join your network, that invitation is freed up and you can use it again.
In addition, LinkedIn provides tools to determine who, from your email lists, is already LinkedIn and doesn’t it use up your invitations when asking people who are already members to join your network.
I have upgraded myself, but I used the free service to build up over 400 connections before I did so.
@Stewart: thanks for the clarification. I’ve been trying out LinkedIn some more, and I’m sorry I didn’t make a longer post about its ease of use. Out of all the internet services I’ve ever use, LinkedIn is by far the most confusing. I wonder if I’m alone here or there are others who feel the same?
I think over 4 million people would disagree with you, but there’s a lot of resources out there that make it easier to understand how to get the best out of it.
It’s like anything - easy to get started, but harder to understand how to turn it into an advantageous solution.
Try reading more about LinkedIn here - http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/ten_ways_to_use.html - and here - http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=tour_flash
@Stewart: people have been known to use some very uncomfortable solutions because they offered them some advantages in other areas. It’s not the overall usefulness of the service I’m complaining about; it’s the actual GUI and the organization of the site.
Example: when I visit someone’s profile, the button I’d like to see first is ‘add this person to my connections’. I get two options: “get introduced” and “contact directly”. Both lead me to the exact same page, which is unfathomable. Let’s go on, I now have the option “contact directly” again, which makes me feel like I’ve wasted one click for nothing. If I click that, LinkedIn requires me to sign in, although I am already signed in. And when I sign in, I’m greeted with one button: Upgrade.
Ok, I click back a couple of times and get to the profile page. I notice the “Know this person? Add them as a connection” link beneath the “Contact directly” button. When I click that, I get a form which requires me to write this person’s e-mail address. Where’s the logic in that? If I wanted to contact the person via e-mail, I would have done that. I just want to add that person as a ‘friend’, ‘contact’, or whatever it’s called. See my point?
This is a horrible user experience. And I have used practically all web 2.0 services and social networks there are: none have been this confusing.
4 million users are hungry to find a way to do business on a site like LinkedIn (which I personally find extraordinarily pretentious by the way). I’ve gotten many “invites” but they are so spammy sounding that it turns me off that it could possibly come from LinkedIn.
I agree that the LinkedIn UI is not slick and confusing. I am a LinkedIn newbie, but I got the hang of the site after a day or so (I missed the distinction between introductions and invitations).
Anyway, the reason I am writing to state that while I agree the UI needs help, the workflow of the websites is pretty clever, including the steps you mention above:
* You cannot offer an “Add this person to my connections” button because this ability to directly invite another user would lessen the need/desire for free users to pay for premium functionality (InMail)
* Without the premium service, you cannot use InMail to directly connect. The name of the game at this point is to figure out which email address the other person is using for LinkedIn - with an email address, you can send out an invitation-to-join
* If you do not know the person’s email address, you can do one of two things: 1) get a hold of the person outside of LinkedIn and ask that person what email address he/she is using. 2) within LinkedIn, if you are twice or thrice removed from the person via common contacts, you can send along an “Introduction”. This introduction must be approved as it moves from each common contact. If the person approves the introduction, you can then see his email address and thus send him an invitation-to-join
I think that the workflows above enable this service with a purpose (networking), a strong motivation to pay for premium features, and (someday soon) a critical-mass of users (people joining to keep-up-with-the-Joneses).
@Dan: thanks for the explanation. I think it illustrates my point quite well: you cannot do what seems logical because it’s a paid feature. Once again, I have no doubt that 9 million members of LinkedIn have a good reason why they’re using it, but I still think the basic features of the site should be organized better.
Stan, I agree. I actually had to spend about 10 minutes on Google searching to figure out the workflow. The LinkedIn Help pages were not adequate to describe “the big picture”.
The best way to get started on LinkedIn, is to find friends who are already using LinkedIn.
A feature has recently been added where you can scan your address book from Y! Mail, GMail, AOL, etc.,address book to see who you know that is already using LinkedIn.
It should be one of the yellow buttons on your homepage.
The ‘Get Introduced’ button should only appear on someone’s profile, if you are somehow connected to that person via friends, and want to send them a message via your connections.
Introductions’ are different from Invitations,. You can invite up to 3,000 people. You can only have 5 open introductions at a time. Which is a great feature for sending a message to someone you don’t know who’s connected to you via one of your connections.
There’s a lot that you can get out of LinkedIn for free actually.
The service is not so much a site for making new business contacts, but rather building your network on LinkedIn from people you already know: colleagues, classmates, friends, etc.
Stan,
I wanted to just reply quickly, as I’ve been away on business.
I’ll do my best to answer your points and play Devil’s Advocate:
>Example: when I visit someone’s profile, the button I’d like to see first is ‘add this >person to my connections’. I get two options: “get introduced� and “contact directly�.
You can’t be allowed to add just anyone without being introduced first, otherwise everyone would simply add everyone else to their network list which would make the system pointless and probably bring it to a halt. The idea of LinkedIn, and any networking system, is to leverage the networks of the people ‘you know well’ to access people ‘they know well’ - it’s not supposed to be a free-for-all. LinkedIn promotes quality over quantity, but some LinkedIn users just don’t get that and go for quantity anyway.
>I notice the “Know this person? Add them as a connection� link beneath the “Contact >directly� button. When I click that, I get a form which requires me to write this >person’s e-mail address. Where’s the logic in that?
Again, this is a privacy issue. If you know the person, you’re asked to put in their email address to prove you know them. This sends off a note to them to ask them to connect with you which, if they really do know you, they’ll accept. This is a good way to build networks, since it doesn’t use one of your 5 concurrent invitations. The Outlook toolbar and web contact search options automate this process for you.
If it’s random connections you want, or just people’s email addresses, LinkedIn isn’t for you. MySpace or Jigsaw would be better for you. For me, LinkedIn is great and over the last three years has delivered a great deal of high-quality, paying business to my door through being found by ‘friends of friends’.
@Stewart: thank you for the further clarification. I understand why you can’t simply add people to your lists. However, I still think that - together with the fact that you’re constantly pointed to the “upgrade” link - it makes LinkedIn look crippled. It’s a social network that constantly puts obstacles into the “networking” part.
Again, I don’t necessarily think that LinkedIn is worthless. But I’m used to web services being very easy to use, and LinkedIn seems to unnecessarily complicate things.
The way I use it, I can’t remember seeing the ‘Upgrade’ link for months, so maybe it’s just a difference in the process we’re using. If you follow the advice I’ve given above, you should do just fine.
Besides, they are entitled to try and get you to pay money occasionally you know!
Anyway - enjoy it or leave it. The choice is yours as ever…
@Stewart: oh, I don’t object to paying for a service. If you check around some of my older posts you’ll see that I’m actually an advocate of the subscription business model for web service - when applicable. But when I’m writing an article I try to put myself in the shoes of different types of users.
Anyway, I’ve tried taking a different approach on LinkedIn - I’ve simply invited all the contacts from my webmail accounts - and to my surprise, this works great. So I guess it is mostly the matter of getting the hang of it. In some cases they’re obviously trying to streamline the service to make you upgrade, while in others it’s quite usable without upgrading.