WARNING... think before you ask a LinkedIn Question

A few days ago LinkedIn launched "Answers". The service was universally acknowledged as a great new feature, and then the SPAM questions started.

LinkedIn certainly listened and, from MLPF, I know a few had their accounts restricted.

Here's the official line - "Please don’t contribute to [LinkedIn Answers] by posting "Questions" (or answers) that are requests for invitations or ads or solicitations. People who misuse this feature will have their accounts restricted. People who have a history of misusing LinkedIn may lose their accounts."

But beyond this, there is something else to consider. When you ask a question you can automatically send the question to your contacts (up to 200, I think).

When they receive your "question" there is also a little link which they can click on to remove you as a connection.

I actually this is a very smart move from LinkedIn.

Keep spamming your connections with thinly veiled , self-promotional "questions" and guess what, you'll not have many connections left.

And remember, once a connection is broken you cannot reconnect.


Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Social Networking, LinkedIn

Show me the money!

Has it really been nearly 3 months since I last posted here? Q4 was busy for my consulting practice and so my ramblings here have had to take a back seat (got to pay those bills you know!)

And paying the bills, or "monetizing" has become a bit of a theme in the social networking space recently.

Aside from a recent round of investment for LinkedIn and Xing's successful IPO, here's two interesting stories:

After 2 years and nearly 5000 members, Vincent Wright is shutting down MyLinkedinPowerForum on February 9, 2007. On MLPF, Vincent wrote:

Though I can still see many things more to do with MLPF, I need to focus on improving my personal prosperity. And if I attempted to carry MLPF too much further, I’d starve - and that’s not nearly as much fun as you may think! :-)

Bottom line: Realistically, this grassroots effort can no longer be done alone and it certainly can’t be done alone AND for free.

And, at this time, I’m compelled to admit that I’ve been unsuccessful in my efforts to successfully fund the group’s grassroots work.

I wish Vincent the all the best. MLPF created a great deal of value for it's members, not least in the ability to "jump-start" their online networks.

To me, it's a lesson for many Web 2.0 companies... now you've built your membership, how do you make it pay. Or, as Jerry Maguire said "show me the money"

At the same time, Ecademy, have been addressing this same issue; the "Greenstar" entry-level grade of membership has now been dropped.

This has caused a number of members to question the value of Ecademy, but, to me, it's simply Ecademy decision on how to monetize their site.

In a way I think their decision could be a good one.

They were clearly loosing the membership arms-race. With just around 100,000 members, they've been overtaken by many new "social networking" startups and are dwarfed by Xing (1m+) & LinkedIn (8.5m+).

However, Ecademy have a different agenda I think.

They have always been closely aligned with offline networking events, and their demographic is clearly one-man-band businesses, freelancers and consultants. And how many of those are there in the world?

With the tools for self-promotion that come with Ecademy membership (unlimited ads & blogging), it's still a good value proposition.

Unlike MLPF, Ecademy have found a way to "show me the money".


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