Todd Earwood » Social Networking http://www.toddearwood.com Connecting the dots of life and business Sat, 26 Dec 2009 04:44:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Can LinkedIn Hold On to Business Networking? http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/12/13/can-linkedin-hold-on-to-business-networking/ http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/12/13/can-linkedin-hold-on-to-business-networking/#comments Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:30:03 +0000 Todd Earwood http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/12/13/can-linkedin-hold-on-to-business-networking/ running behindAfter hearing LinkedIn’s announcements of new features, I thought this image perfectly depicted their position. LinkedIn is way ahead, but Facebook and others are encroaching on LinkedIn’s business networking turf. To “flank” Facebook and the numerous startup networks, LinkedIn has added the following features:

  • Facebook’s feed – Possibly Facebook’s greatest feature is it’s mini-feed where the actions of your connections are displayed each day. It’s so nice, MySpace copied it and now LinkedIn has too. Smart move as it’s the best viral tool inside a network I’ve found.
  • Corporate news – They’ve partnered with Business Week to integrate news stories into your feed. They’re also “scraping” in stories about companies. For example, if Jim worked at Dell and is your connection, you’ll see news stories about Dell when you visit his profile. Not sure of the value there, but does save a quick online search.
  • Platform – If you’re going to steal their feed, steal their the bigger idea and become a platform! Again, not a bad move, but as I understand it… they will allow people to build business (note: not for fun) applications using LinkedIn’s data. I’m very interested in seeing what uses will be created.

I think these moves are in the right direction for LinkedIn, but execution (as always) will determine the success. I do think they are missing a few other key points, so here are a few ideas they should be embrace:

  • Lead generation – If LinkedIn could start matching my needs to service providers, I see an enormous upside for all parties. The only leads I’ve seen generated today are job leads.
  • Better interface – A common theme I hear about is how “clunky” everything is with LinkedIn. Their search isn’t easy to use. Neither is setting up or managing a group. Interface sounds like an easy fix, but with a mature application, it’s not.
  • User input – A major weakness of LinkedIn is the lack of ways to communicate with their company. One sign of a flourishing, active community is a conversation between the users and the product development team.

A combination of driving business and talking to their community would be a nice compliment to their “new” ideas.

Others talking about this topic: Jeremiah Owyang and Andy Beal.

Flickr photo credit: Ulan25

]]> http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/12/13/can-linkedin-hold-on-to-business-networking/feed/ 2 How to Be a LinkedIn Whore and Win http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/10/25/how-to-be-a-linkedin-whore-and-win/ http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/10/25/how-to-be-a-linkedin-whore-and-win/#comments Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:06:24 +0000 Todd Earwood http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/10/25/how-to-be-a-linkedin-whore-and-win/ I interviewed Marc Freedman who has over 15,000 LinkedIn connections! We discuss how he’s benefited from being a LinkedIn Whore (his words). Marc runs dallasblue.com and several other ventures along with his super networking efforts.

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]]> http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/10/25/how-to-be-a-linkedin-whore-and-win/feed/ 1 Bay Area Veteran on the Benefits of Social Networking http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/08/20/bay-area-veteran-on-the-benefits-of-social-networking/ http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/08/20/bay-area-veteran-on-the-benefits-of-social-networking/#comments Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:00:10 +0000 Todd Earwood http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/08/20/bay-area-veteran-on-the-benefits-of-social-networking/ This is part two of my interview with Robin Wolaner. We discuss the benefits she’s seen of social networking for both her startup and personally. Specifically, she references examples of LinkedIn and even MySpace.

If you’re catching up, be sure to catch the first part of our talk, then head over to LinkedIn and add me as your contact. It’s the best way to keep track of my ventures and network.

]]> http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/08/20/bay-area-veteran-on-the-benefits-of-social-networking/feed/ 0 Hesitant to show my face http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/06/25/hesitant-to-show-my-face/ http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/06/25/hesitant-to-show-my-face/#comments Mon, 25 Jun 2007 05:15:20 +0000 Todd Earwood http://www.toddearwood.com/2007/06/25/hesitant-to-show-my-face/ facebook vs myspaceI’ve been very reluctant to join Facebook, my sister hailed its benefits (she’s in college) and Steven has been urging me to make the switch from MySpace… so Saturday I finally did it. All recent signs have pointed to Facebook, Paul called it the new LinkedIn, Jim likes that FB is free and too many to type are raving about their new platform.

Will I give up MySpace? No, not immediately. I’ve put in too much time and have too many friends there. Will they end up on Facebook? My gut today says… most of them will (or they’re already there).

Like any move, a transition can be tough. They have some UI flaws, but not near as many as MySpace. The worst part is I have to re-add all my connections! And I find it odd FB is missing a few key categories on how I know someone (Jon said this too).

So, am I just following the crowds? In some ways… yes. But it’s a massive crowd (100,000 new users per day). My business “face” is still with LinkedIn and the migration might be slow, but my social face may soon beat myspace.

Photo credit: Metrics 2.0

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