4 ms·

This isn't a bad article, but it's extremely one-sided, from the POV of tech employees, which are still the vast minority of workers. Yes, it's spammy and yes,

by eitally 11y ago

This isn't a bad article, but it's extremely one-sided, from the POV of tech employees, which are still the vast minority of workers. Yes, it's spammy and yes, they use dark patterns, and yes, there should have been some better ethical governance since the beginning, but it's not as bad at what it aims to do as a lot of people believe. Even if you just consider it a business card holder -- there's actual value there. Add in facilities to empower connections between people who don't know each other, or who only share connections, and it's pretty powerful. I think they can successfully navigate through this critical spot and emerge much stronger on the other side. They just need to refocus on what the core value propositions are.

gadders 11y ago
I was coming to say this. From the article: "Spotting the best talent is actually far easier with tools like Talentbin, Stack Overflow, and Github, which aggregate or facilitate positive interactions and allow skilled individuals to display their work — showing why they’re good at what they do." So that covers technical people, technical people and, er, technical people. What if I want to find a PR Agency? Or a company to refurnish my office?
- paulddraper 11y ago
  Or hire a PM? Or HR? Or marketing?
Disruptive_Dave 11y ago
Look no further than the source. Who is TC writing for? Certainly not my girlfriend. Certainly not the founder of my former marketing agency.
- kevinwang 11y ago
  Yeah, but it's not really about the audience of the article, it's about the audience of LinkedIn. Which is being portrayed as predominately tech-industry, when in reality the tech industry (where stackoverflow and github are relevant) is a small fraction of LinkedIn's market
forgetsusername 11y ago
>Even if you just consider it a business card holder -- there's actual value there Yes, but how much? $30BB, where it was last month? What about the $16BB it sits at today? I think both figures overestimate the value.
- aidos 11y ago
  I've had my fair share of LinkedIn hate in the past. Using it outside the tech industry is really useful though - it's almost like a GitHub profile in some circles. Using it as an advertiser is something else altogether. Their advertising interface sucks but holy moly, it's the best business ad targeting platform in the world. People use it, that makes it valuable for advertising - that makes the company valuable. How valuable, not sure - but I think the tech industry doesn't really get LinkedIn so there's a lot of knee jerk bias.
  - smt88 11y ago
    Useful doesn't mean it can be monetized. Google has killed literally dozens of products that lots of people used, simply because they couldn't monetize them. Smaller companies do the same all the time.

by eitally 11y ago

gadders 11y ago

I was coming to say this. From the article: "Spotting the best talent is actually far easier with tools like Talentbin, Stack Overflow, and Github, which aggregate or facilitate positive interactions and allow skilled individuals to display their work — showing why they’re good at what they do." So that covers technical people, technical people and, er, technical people. What if I want to find a PR Agency? Or a company to refurnish my office?

paulddraper 11y ago
Or hire a PM? Or HR? Or marketing?

Disruptive_Dave 11y ago

Look no further than the source. Who is TC writing for? Certainly not my girlfriend. Certainly not the founder of my former marketing agency.

kevinwang 11y ago
Yeah, but it's not really about the audience of the article, it's about the audience of LinkedIn. Which is being portrayed as predominately tech-industry, when in reality the tech industry (where stackoverflow and github are relevant) is a small fraction of LinkedIn's market

forgetsusername 11y ago

>Even if you just consider it a business card holder -- there's actual value there Yes, but how much? $30BB, where it was last month? What about the $16BB it sits at today? I think both figures overestimate the value.

aidos 11y ago
I've had my fair share of LinkedIn hate in the past. Using it outside the tech industry is really useful though - it's almost like a GitHub profile in some circles. Using it as an advertiser is something else altogether. Their advertising interface sucks but holy moly, it's the best business ad targeting platform in the world. People use it, that makes it valuable for advertising - that makes the company valuable. How valuable, not sure - but I think the tech industry doesn't really get LinkedIn so there's a lot of knee jerk bias.
- smt88 11y ago
  Useful doesn't mean it can be monetized. Google has killed literally dozens of products that lots of people used, simply because they couldn't monetize them. Smaller companies do the same all the time.