For the life of me I don't understand why Google+ didn't just target professional use cases and kill these guys. The bar is just soooo low and makes such strategically obvious sense. Actually, they could still probably do it - if anyone wants to put me in charge of Google+ for the next 3 years, all your LinkedIn problems will be over.
Google wanted to take on Facebook. I'd contend that they didn't succeed, and I suspect most would agree. LinkedIn has a market, but it apparently isn't the one Google wanted.
Interestingly, there are people posting on Google+ that make for the occasional, decent content. Far more, certainly, than the awful "inspirational" memes I see so often on my LinkedIn feed.
> the awful "inspirational" memes I see so often on my LinkedIn feed
Heh- my instagram feed is clogged up with inspirational memes. Interestingly, they're posted the most by the least successful people.
Linkedin skeeved me out and I stopped using it after they started spamming me constantly to add all these random people I barely know to my professional network, like a dude I sold a couch to on craigslist in 2007. No thanks, Linkedin. No thanks.
Indeed, the internal argument was that Google was blind to all the data within Facebook, and thus FB would be in a stronger long term position to sell targeted ads. LinkedIn, in contrast, is already Google indexed. It'd be difficult to bootstrap their company without exposure, since it's a double sided social network.
But when has Google ever really gone deep and sustainable in a vertical like this? They don't seem to have staying power in anything that isn't a pure internet infrastructure essential. LinkedIn doesn't seem to be the kind of thing they could nail, or would commit to even if they did have some fledgling success.
Speaking for myself, not OP, and as someone who's criticised G+ strongly on numerous grounds:
Google+ started, at least, with a rather strong professional cachet. Its inaugural user cohort trended very strongly to Googlers, Xooglers, their immediate contacts, techies, and a number of folk with aligned interests.
And, unfortunately, SEO and marketing types. A very nearly fatal disease in a content-sharing community.
Google had a number of tremendous mis-steps. Privacy and confidentiality were very large among them, and I've little confidence that Vic Gundotra's G+ of 2012 could have executed on a professional-networking G+ successfully.
I think that with many of the very, very hard lessons Google's experienced, and I very sincerely hope has learned from, it could today.
Google could offer a G+ professional network which, at the very least, would benefit Google itself as a recruiting device. Possibly paired with other activities (women in STEM outreach, summer of code), and platforms (something Github-esque).
Google offering a general interest recruiting platform is probably a non-starter, in that it's a direct conflict of interest (Google would want the best candidates for itself), and in light of the illegal anti-poaching collusion case (still ongoing IIUC). Pity.
Google also don't need to directly monetise G+, an could avoid many of LinkedIn's more obnoxious practices.
I think people within our direct industry tend to look down on LinkedIn but it seems clear to me that those in sales and b2b find it completely invaluable. Their interface to me looks haggard and is filled with bugs but I don't expect this to be anymore than the fluctuations and corrections in the market.
Does anyone other than slimy recruiters actually use LinkedIn?
Actually curious - I've never had any interactions through the site other than randos endorsing me for things I know nothing about, and code-sausage-machine consultants and recruiters sending me emails about positions that don't match anything in my profile. But it must have somebody out there that uses it, if they're pulling in 3.6 billion in revenue.
You're a developer, i'm guessing your profile plays that up. Are you expecting anything other than a recruiter to contact you?
Now imagine you're a buyer for a large furniture retailer, if you have your profile open, it might not be unusual for a supplier looking to get into somewhere bigger to contact you.
I've worked with a few sales guys, what they tend to do is use linkedin to build a tactical map. They then strategically expand their network until they get close to who they want.
LinkedIn, when used correctly probably won't come in the form of an inMail, but in the form of a phone call out of the blue from an acquaintance.
I personally don't care for the site, but when I do use it, it is to learn more about people before contacting them to avoid wasting time. For instance, reading an article that quotes someone, and then finding out if they're still doing work in that area and what their contact information is to see if they're interested in collaborating. Or figuring out which geographical regions some company was doing a project in if I was interested in learning more... people usually like talking about their interests after all.
Also good for finding well respected people in my field, figuring out from that which companies are doing good work there, and keeping tabs on the companies so that I have a clue what the more global picture is outside of my immediate circles.
At my last couple jobs there was actually a running joke that any time someone updated their LinkedIn profile it was because they were looking for another job. It seemed to actually be mostly true.
Yes, I use LinkedIn all the time to figure out who in my network knows someone else, so that I can background check someone before I walk into a meeting or ask for them to send a backchannel recommendation. Not for hiring, but for various other kinds of business deals. I don't use it at all for the social network stuff--I find that a complete waste of time. As a network map + living resume of people I'm meeting with it's fantastic.
> positions that don't match anything in my profile
It's funny you mention that because I feel like in the last year or so LinkedIn recruiters have caught on a bit. I've received far less solicitations than years past (at one point I was getting 5-10 per day). In fact I rarely ever get LinkedIn spam these days. Instead I'm seeing more spam from Dribbble and AngleList.
People find jobs through it all the time. Sadly LinkedIn seems to have put their Groups on the back burner, but they're still a good way to chat with people in your industry, especially niche and non-tech industries
The company is still valued as if it has a whole lot of "real value"--even after tonight's precipitous decline, it is valued at $17B to be exact. Based on its slowing growth in the 30% range, it no longer deserves a unicorn multiple on its revenue. I think the company provides a useful service and will succeed in the long term, but there are two pieces to investing--company prospects and price. I would only buy under $75 which we may see in a coming bear market.
Well, I found several jobs using linkedin, so for me, it works. You have to be a bit harsh on accepting links with people you don't know, but I can't complain...
And there's the odd funny joke too -- once I got a job offer for building a supermarket on the south coast. You know, I'm a 'software architect' after all, got to know how to build supermarkets...
(well I did participate in projects that looked a lot like oil refineries, to be fair ;-))
AAwooga! Awooga!! Add this girl you hooked up with at a frat party in 2004 to your professional network!! Connect with your former sketchy real estate agent who snorted coke, attempted to feel up your sister in law, and then fell into the pool at the open house.
I don't know how Linkedin finds these people that I purposely spent the last decade trying to forget, and why they are so insistent that I connect professionally with them all.
Spooky isn't it? I always wonder how they do it. I'm not on fecebook and all that, and they still find people I had completely forgotten about from completely out of context with sometime even zero electronic communication involved!
