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Related, albeit of a different nature, a pretty classic LinkedIn tactic now are connection requests seemingly from relatively attractive young women (at least w
by personZ 12y ago
Related, albeit of a different nature, a pretty classic LinkedIn tactic now are connection requests seemingly from relatively attractive young women (at least when targeting men. A similar ruse is using age-correlated female from names when sending mass mailings -- instead of being from "Widget Co Promotions", it's from Brittney @ Widget Co).
Moments ago I followed one connection request I was sent, trying to find how I knew this person, to what was clearly a fake company with dozens of these "employees" -- all 20-ish, attractive women[1] with cloned profiles and fake backstories, to be shocked to find that many of them shared connections with me -- people I knew accepted the connection request because...attractive person. And this likely bot keeps crawling through the social graph building its master corpus of relationships.
To make it even more humorous, many of these fake profiles had various skills endorsed by seemingly real people. So not only did people connect with fake people on a picture, they felt the need to endorse them as well, earning their imaginary trust. Who knows...maybe it'll be the start of a crazy internet romance? Man and virtual bot.
[1] An interesting correlation would be determining someone's "type" from their online profiles, optimizing the success rate of the connection. Do they like the big haired blond? Maybe the petite Asian? How about the short-cropped strong-faced woman? A penchant for red heads?
- pavel_lishin 12y ago> not only did people connect with fake people on a picture, they felt the need to endorse them as well, earning their imaginary trust LinkedIn shoves the 'endorse' feature in your face so heavily that it's almost more difficult to NOT endorse someone for something.
- mnw21cam 12y agoOh heck, yeah. I have been endorsed for things I didn't even know I was an expert in.
- Xeoncross 12y agomnw21cam is an expert in widgets and spacecraft. Highly recommend.
- mattzito 12y agoI actually requested that some of my friends endorse me for "Sandwiches". Partially to highlight the ridiculousness of endorsements, but also because I make really good sandwiches.
- pavel_lishin 12y agoMy friends endorsed me for some more obscene stuff, and I naturally responded in kind. Of course, now that I'm looking for it, I can't find the interface in LinkedIn :/
- brianbarker 12y agoWhen I had LinkedIn I got endorsements for Copy & Paste.
- stevekemp 12y agoI accepted an endorsement for "Sarcasm" recently.
- delecti 12y agoI called out a very close friend for endorsing me for something that I definitely hadn't listed. He said LinkedIn suggested it and he assumed I must be proficient if I had listed it.
- eli 12y ago> "people I knew accepted the connection request because...attractive person" Or they just accept everyone. I did that for years.
- Kiro 12y agoI still do.
- personZ 12y agoFor sure, that plays a part as well, but for those who are more discerning I think this does add to to the probability of acceptance. LinkedIn is a tool that reveals far more information than people imagine. I recently un-connected from some old peers because we are now effectively in competition with each other, and it felt dirty seeing connection notifications for them and knowing (later confirmed), companies they were targeting, strategies they were pursuing, etc. Not only did I not want to benefit from that, in reverse I realized the same could be seen from my activities, when clients I was soliciting would connect with me on our first engagement, etc. In the LinkedIn world, Bud Fox wouldn't have had to follow Wildman around to determine that he was interested in Anacott Steel -- he could simply watch as his M&A team connected with the Anacott Steel executive, etc.
- syntern 12y agoLast time I've checked you can set what LinkedIn will post about your activities e.g. you can probably disable announcing your new connections etc.
- mahyarm 12y agoIf you don't treat linked in as a public resume your doing it wrong. You should only put information there that anybody including competitors could look up quickly.
- roc 12y ago"doing it wrong" sums up how most people use most software.
- kelukelugames 12y agoI never get messaged by these attractive bots. Striking out with the ladies once again. :(