Lifted in toto from
Beyond Search:
I signed up for the free LinkedIn years ago. I don’t do too much
LinkedIn surfing. I do delete the email I get from the company. I had
one of the goslings post a list of my articles to see what would happen.
(Results of the test: Nothing happened.) I find it amusing that
marketers and PR “professionals” want to be my LinkedIn contact. I used
to write these folks and ask, “Why do you want to be my LinkedIn
friend?” (Results of the test: No one writes back.) Now you know why I
don’t do much LinkedIn surfing. No, I don’t read the musings of the
firm’s “thought leaders.”
I did read “LinkedIn Problems Run Deeper Than Valuation.” The write up informed me of this interesting “assertion”:
The problem stems from each of the company’s revenue
streams, which ultimately diminish the business value of using the
service. Whether it’s being paid to promote content, focusing on sales
and recruitment over other professions, or interruptive advertising,
these streams incentivize poor behavior by individual users on the site.
I like that “poor behavior” and the incentive angle. The concrete foundation of LinkedIn, it seems to me, is spam.
The company, according to the write up, has a reason to face each day with a big smile:
The company still has assets that are the envy of any tech company — a vast user base and a wealth of content to exploit.
As Yahoo’s publishing experiment demonstrates, content may not be enough.
I think the larger issue is the fact that social networks often lose
their stickiness after a period of time. Google’s social efforts seem to
mirror the challenges of MySpace. LinkedIn may find itself trapped by
its own job hunting system choked with marketers’ leading thoughts.
Why not drive for Uber, Lyft, or Amazon? Less spam and probably a
shorter path to some real cash. By the way, did you ever try to locate
something using the company’s search engine? Quite a piece of work is
that.
Stephen E Arnold, February 29, 2016
Speaking of which, I forgot to note that last week
Dilbert's Asok had given notice to the pointy-headed boss:
