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

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. I do not work in programming though.