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AnchorDesk

David Coursey
Can online social networks help you at work?

David Coursey
Executive Editor, AnchorDesk
Monday, Mar. 1, 2004
TalkBack!Add your opinion
To everyone who has been inviting me to join their LinkedIn networks: Please stop. While I'm flattered by all the attention, I can barely remember many of you who'd like to include me in your network of trusted business colleagues. Some of you I don't recognize even when I read your online profile.

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LinkedIn is part of the latest Internet get-rich-quick scheme, online social networks, which are supposed to connect you, via your existing network of friends and colleagues, to their friends and colleagues, and so on in an ever expanding circles of connection. The idea goes back to the notion Stanley Milgram proposed back in the late 1960s--that everyone on the planet was only a hop-skip-and-a-couple-of-jumps away from everyone else, at least socially.

SPECIFICALLY, Milgram theorized that you and anyone you'd want to know are only six introductions apart. For example, you know me (sorta), I know Bill Gates (though we're certainly not chummy), so you're one degree of separation from Bill. Of course, I don't know you well enough to recommend you to Bill, and Mr. Gates may or may not respond to my e-mail on your behalf.

Milgram's "six degrees of separation" became a party game some years ago, with everyone trying to figure out how many degrees separated them from various famous folks. The way I played requires that everyone in the line be someone who'd return the other person's telephone call.

My big win came when I met Ron Reagan, the former president's son, in the CNET "green room" while we were shooting a TV program. I asked Ron for permission to add him to my list of people who'd return a call. Since his dad would doubtless return his call and almost everyone would have returned the former president's call, I was suddenly very close to all kinds of interesting people (at least in theory, and only until President Reagan became ill).

But you get the idea. LinkedIn tries to link me and all my friends to all my friends' friends. If I know Bob, Bob knows Carol, Carol knows Ted, and Ted knows Alice, all those people in the middle should be willing to introduce me to one another until I get to Alice--only to find out, I fear, that Alice doesn't live there anymore.

IF YOU NEED an introduction to a venture capitalist or someone who can hire (or be hired by) you, this service is potentially useful. It had better be, because LinkedIn might start charging $10 to $15 per completed connection once the beta-version training wheels come off.

Again, if the introduction is high-value enough, then the price is worth every penny. But if you have to find more than a few people it gets steep pretty fast. And what about all those people between you and your target? Shouldn't they get a piece of the action? After all, they're helping to facilitate the process.

LinkedIn isn't alone. Others with similar business models include Friendster, Friendzy, Ryze, and Tribe.net. I've also been invited to join yet another service--this one a part of the growing Google empire--called orkut, which is a by-invitation-only network.

Of these, Friendster and Friendzy focus primarily on personal social networking, LinkedIn on professional networking, and the other two on both. Ryze is the only of these to announce pricing, which at $9.95 a month is something I might actually be willing to pay.

But back to my LinkedIn dilemma and the people who want me in their networks: If I don't recognize your bio, much less am able to put a face to your name, how much of a trusted business colleague can I be? And if you don't know me well enough to know the name of at least one of my cats, or one of my old assistants, or the names of the conferences I used to host, well, we're just not that close.

NEVERTHELESS, I've already added a bunch of you to my network. Not that I ever intend to use this network or that I really think there is much of a business model here. But I added you nonetheless. Perhaps I added you because I really never intend to participate in this phenomenon. Or maybe it's because I don't want to offend people.

I know the idea that I might not want to offend will surprise many readers of this column. But there are a zillion people in the technology industry who have attended my events or even shaken hands with me. Because my picture runs with this column, another zillion recognize me at events. This is embarrassing, because I don't recognize many of these folks and, because I need glasses but don't always wear them, I can't always sneak a look at a name badge and find out who it is that likes me so much.

Lately, I've been making it a practice of bringing a colleague (like my newest assistant, Rachel) to events. That way when someone walks up and starts in with "Hi, David" like we're old chums, Rachel can interrupt and get the person's name without me having to ask and give away my complete cluelessness as to who's standing in front of me.

Still, more than 100,000 people are supposedly linked to me through my LinkedIn network, a number that increases every time I add one of these people I barely know, if at all.

BY SAYING "yes" to people who are essentially strangers, yet still want me to join their LinkedIn network, I dilute the value of that network. But at least I don't have to worry about offending somebody from whom I might need a favor in the future or who'd be hurt to find out we're not the great friends they suppose us to be.

And I bet I'm not alone. My feeling is that, unless these business networks are closely controlled, they'll rapidly be crushed under their own weight. They strike me as being the social equivalent of multilevel marketing--something that has always struck me as more than a little sleazy.

I'm not sure how useful these networks will become. Clearly, there are areas of life, like dating, where they may perform a valuable service by introducing people who would otherwise not meet. But in a business context, I have serious doubts about whether the networks can remain exclusive enough to really be useful and inexpensive enough to be something we'd all use all the time.

What do you think? Would you ever use a service like LinkedIn? Have you already? TalkBack to me below! 

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