The New LinkedIn: Better Business or Big Brother?
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere in the middle of nowhere, you have heard of LinkedIn.
It’s one of the largest and most popular professional social networks on the planet. Recently, LinkedIn relaunched their website with a completely fresh and friendly perspective. It looks and feels so much more organic and “now” or contemporary. Upgrades to searching, commenting, connecting, and much more have solidified it’s place as the “black and white” tuxedo of the Social Media world.
With progress comes unexpected “surprises” that most people are not aware of or even know how to ask to become aware. One of which could be considered disturbing to some who value their personal privacy and to others who could most likely care less. Are you asking yourself, “What is the “surprise” you speak of, Andrew?”
Well, here it is.
I recently noticed that LinkedIn now tracks your every click. We all know that every action of a click means something, to someone, somewhere. Here’s the catch…when you surf their site and you click to read someone’s profile or do anything…the URL will change. So far doesn’t sound too odd or off…right? I mean, technically speaking, every page you visit on any site is a unique URL that is within another URL. Well, watch what happens when you check out another person’s profile just after viewing something on a previous profile page you were on. The URL now includes that action as part of the URL and so on and so forth. So eventually LinkedIn will be able to backtrack everything you do on their site. Concerned yet? Many are.
I completely understand why LinkedIn would want to have it this way. A great reason would be to keep track of Spammers that have recently infiltrated LinkedIn like termites to wood. LinkedIn would be able to see how many profiles someone has looked at and how often they are sending email out to people outside their own network. Spamming is becoming such a problem on LinkedIn because anyone can open an account and claim to be someone from a company that either exists or doesn’t exist. It’s really getting bad and if you are on LinkedIn as often as I am…you’ll know what I am talking about. It’s terrible.
Another good reason they are doing this, in my opinion, is to help out with relevance and ratios. Just because a profile has the right keywords now, doesn’t mean it’ll be relevant and you will show up on the first page of LinkedIn anymore. (again this is only my theory.) It does make sense if you think about it. An algorithm based on keyword search, click through ratios, and possibly even amount of time spent on that page. Many new aspects of ephemeral data are becoming more and more relevant to LinkedIn.
So it’s up to you the viewer to decide whether this new LinkedIn layout and functionality makes for better business or for a Big Brother complex. I suppose it all depends on what side of the aisle you are on: are you on LinkedIn to indeed link in with other professionals or are you a Spammer on the verge of getting caught? heh.
One thing is for sure, LinkedIn is an amazing Social Media tool, that when used properly can be incredibly profitable.
[Side note:] I have suggestions for LinkedIn and how they can make their site even more incredible.
1. Live Chat software in realtime to connect with that person whose profile you are viewing.
2. Private Conference chat rooms where people need a code to get in.
3. ClickToTalk technology, where someone can click a connect button and that person would be called on their cell phone or work phone.
The benefits to these ideas include: Instantly discuss ideas, presentations, make deals, ask questions, customer service, etc.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rain Collazo, LiveChatAgent. LiveChatAgent said: http://ow.ly/TNib The New LinkedIn: Better Business or Big Brother? New Post "The Baron Bytes Back!" #socialmedia #socialnetworking [...]
Andrew, good post, did not even notice that. LinkedIn has to be concerned with how spammy its getting, but its still a must to be on there, if you plan to survive in this 2.0 world we now live in.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by LiveChatAgent: http://ow.ly/TNib The New LinkedIn: Better Business or Big Brother? New Post “The Baron Bytes Back!” #socialmedia #socialnetworking…
Ruben,
I always look between lines and see something. (I try to…) There is always a story, a dialog, a thought about the unknown or the inconceivable that I consistently look for.
BTW…I used my Photoshop skillz to make that image too. heh. Thanks for reading and commenting!
Awesome! Just got a new iPhone and I can read your blog from it. I after reading your article I went back into LinkedIn and checked out a few of my friends on there and you were totally right! I’m not scared of LinkedIn, but I am impressed by your observations.
I’m always excited to visit this blog. Please keep on churning out the quality content. It’s very entertaining and insightful.
I really like what you have done with your blog! Bravo!
Thanks for writing about this. There’s a heap of great tech information on the internet. You’ve got a lot of that info here on your web site. I’m impressed – I try to keep a couple blogs pretty live, but it’s a struggle sometimes. You’ve done a great job with this one. How do you do it?
Hello, Just wanted to say… Your blog is so informative keep up the good work!
This is my first time to visit your blog and I would say you share nice information. You definitely do research and write very well. Keep it up!