On 03/02/11 23:44, Fred Cisin wrote: LinkedIn especially is pretty pointless... "You need to sign up for a subscription, and buy messaging points to send a message to this user!" Riiight... Like that'll happen. Even Farce-book (for all its flaws) lets you message other users for free. Seems the clowns behind LinkedIn don't quite get the "social" part of "social networking." -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

On 2/3/2011 7:29 PM, Philip Pemberton wrote: I think linkedin is fantastic. The majority of the people that are in my field, in my city, have accounts. It's a small world, and having a personal contact inside other companies is absolutely invaluable when searching for a job. Not only does it give you access to information that you couldn't learn elsewhere, but just the ability of someone to hand your resume to the hiring manager is useful. Separates your resume There are job opportunities that the companies post themselves. You can also track companies, and learn about the number of hires/departures/etc. Do research on the people you'll be interviewing with, and so on. Yes, I understand that there are associated privacy risks. Obviously you can choose how much or what to include in your profile. Right. You can't message someone you don't know for free, or don't have a connection to. I think this is reasonable. They can't just have people messaging people willy nilly without turning it into a spamfest. You can pay for the ability to send someone a message (from outside your network) --- but this usage is carefully tracked, and the cost per message is way too high to be abused. You can message everyone within your network for free, and I don't know offhand how many levels (aka degrees of separation) you can do this. It's at least direct connections, and their connections. Maybe it's three levels. The point is this: no one normally pays for linkedin, and most features that most people use are free. I had a technical recruiter from a company contact me through their "paid messaging" option. She read part of my profile summary, and thought I would be a good match. I have an interview Wednesday. :) Linkedin seems valuable to me. Keith

In article <4D4B4862.2010407 at philpem.me.uk>, Philip Pemberton <classiccmp at philpem.me.uk> writes: I've sent messages to people without buying anything. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>