Thomas Power - Quality Emerges from Quantity

Thomas Power's blog on A Friend in Every City is always worth watching.

I particularly like his post Networking - why quality emerges from quantity. If you've been online networking for any length of time then you'd have seen many long, rambling and emotive debates on this subject; it never fails to polarise opinion.

For the record, I lean in the quantity direction, which is probably why I like Thomas' post ;-)

Technorati Tags - Online Networking,Ecademy, Social Networking

Blast from The Past...My Networking "Interview"

Back in June 2005, I was interviewed by Michael Beale for his NLP 'Analytical' Modelling project on networking.

I found it whilst doing a search for myself on google for yesterday's blog on Web Profiles On Google.

I've known Michael for some time now, he's a member of ecademy, plus he runs the PPI Business Club on LinkedIn.

Michael's "Thoughts On Networking" blog also includes interviews with individuals with different views about online and offline networking, including Ron Bates, #1 on LinkedIn.

For me, it's a bit like seeing yourself on film (shudder) but it's "out there" so make of it what you will.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Ecademy, LinkedIn, Social Networking

LinkedIn Adds 1 Million Every 3 Months

Just read an interesting figure in an interview with Konstantin Guericke, Co-Founder and VP Marketing at LinkedIn.

In the interview LinkedIn : Web 2.0 moves beyond the "“read"” paradigm of Web 1.0, Konstantin mentions that Linkedin "are adding one million new members every three months" and that the "LinkedIn Network grew by 3 million users in 2005 alone".

Also, it was interesting to find out that LinkedIn already have "1.9 million in Europe".

So, just over 36% of LinkedIn members are in Europe. Knowing that openBC has 1 million members world-wide you can see how large LinkedIn's footprint really is.

And it's growth is accelerating...

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn, Social Networking

Web Profiles on Google

Did you know that your online networking profile for LinkedIn, Ecademy, openBC and soflow is crawled and indexed by Google?

I think LinkedIn was the last the join in. Here's a snap-shot of how Google ranks my profile on all these platforms:


Ecademy comes out #1, followed by openBC, then LinkdedIn and Soflow at #4.

Also, LinkedIn is the only site where you have to enable your profile for the web.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, openBC, LinkedIn, Ecademy, Soflow, Social Networking

Are you a Super Collector?

Terms such as Maven and Connector have passed into (almost) common usage since the popularity of Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point.

Now, Bill Liao of openBC suggests a few more networking terms in his recent openBLOG posting "New lexicon for Social Software".

I particularly like the term Super Collector: "Someone who spends inordinate time connecting to people just for the sake of collecting them as a contact."

It's interesting as, for me, I recognise quite a few people who fit this description on openBC. I'll often get requests to connect with someone on openBC for no obvious reason. It really doesn't make sense on openBC, as the number of connections you have does not affect your networking "experience" (unlike LinkedIn where connections provide access and visibility across LinkedIn's 5 million + users)

I remember chatting to Julian Bond, Ecademy's CTO, last year and he felt that online networking was moving beyond just "collecting names".

The reality is that all the online networking platforms used viral marketing to grow rapidly. They all had ranking systems or built in mechanisms which encouraged people to invite their friends and connect to more people. Human nature is that, if you set the game up for someone to be #1, there will always be people motivated to go for it.

On openBC, you are ranked by country (your ranking is private to you) by the number of connections you have and number of successful invitations you've made. Once you do that, someone's always going to be motivated to connect to anyone, just so they can be "#1 in Albania".

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, openBC, LinkedIn, Ecademy, Tipping Point, Social Networking

Christian Mayaud on Social Networking

Anyone who's been active on LinkedIn will have come across Christian Mayaud.

Christian's Sacred Cow Dung blog is a favourite of mine, and probably best known for the Cheaters' Guide to LinkedIn.

For a long time, Christian has written about social networking and his views are always worth exploring. His recent post The Natural Life-Cycle of a Personal Network is a great example. The concept of PAN's, CAN's and FAN's makes sense to me. If you're wondering what I'm on about, then check out his blog.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn, Social Networking

Linked 'n' 37 - what's it all about?

This is my blog for musings and observations about online networking. My company blog for Maine Associates is focused on business development because (surprise, surprise) that's what my business is all about.

And as I spend a lot of my time on sites such as LinkedIn, openBC, and Ecademy, I often blog about these sites in relation to business development.

So, why this site?

Primarily because there are a lot of things I want to blog about that have nothing to do with my business but everything to do with online networking.

But, why "Linked 'n' 37"?

Well I'm currently 37 years old and (when I blogged last month) I was #37 on LinkedIn as ranked by the site TopLinked.com. So, I'm linked online 'n' I'm 37 years old and #37 on Linkedin.

All very clever and witty, eh?

Trouble is, I checked on TopLinked.com today while writing this post and found that I'm now ranked #39! Such is the fast moving world of online networking.

Anyway, I'll be 38 years old later this year so who's counting. ;-)

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn, openBC, Ecademy, Social Networking

Disclaimer - LinkedIn and affiliated images and trademarks are copyrighted and owned by LinkedIn Corporation. OK, my Linked 'n' 37 logo is a pastiche of the real thing in a "tongue in cheek", fan's "homage" type of way. If a big Californian lawyer comes down on me, then I'll have to remove it. So, enjoy it while you can :-)