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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 99.8.225.97 (talk) at 03:29, 26 January 2009 (→‎Valuation). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"LinkedIn participates in the EU Safe Harbor Privacy Framework and is certified to meet the strict privacy guidelines of the European Union." ... and a bit later it states you cannot remove your profile?? Isn't this a part of EU guidelines?

This whole page reads like an advert.

Are we sure this is not written by LinkedIn?

I have made some format changes and removed some of the adverty text. Hopefully it reads better now (and I can confirm I dont work for linkedin!) ChrisUK 17:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I made some more changes today to remove a lot of what seemed like marketing material. Hopefully it looks a bit more neutral now.ChrisUK 13:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it would help if more of their competitors had articles on Wikipedia? I added a link to Spoke, which is a dead link in Wikipedia (for now). Spoke seems to come up just as often as LinkedIn when I google a person's name, so it may be an up and come-er, as it were. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.252.119.177 (talk) 00:02, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of social networking websites on AfD

List of social networking websites is currently an AfD candidate. You are invited to partake in this discussion. Czj 18:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Visualisation

This is a very interesting tool but I was surprised to see there is hardly any visualisation tool to show the underlined directed graph. I didn't even find a way to see the path that connect me to a specific indirect contact of mine. Did I miss something? does anyone knows what their future plans about it? thanksori 00:34, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just saw they've added it. NiceOri 19:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Privacy concerns

Why is this merited? Is it on every social networking site? Every online community? Also, this is completely one-sided. If it's going to be in there at all, it needs to be balanced.

LinkedIn Deceptive

LinkedIn is deceptive. Visitors are urged to join LinkedIn and provide personal information. Only after spending time to set up their "accounts" do they find out that they cannot actually contact any other LinkedIn members without paying for premium membership. This is a sleazy practice when done without prior notification and should be revealed in the Main Article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.100.59.68 (talk) 06:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

If you can cite a reliable source, then there is nothing against a criticism section. Without a source, it's original research and not allowed. —bbatsell ¿? 04:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's not at all accurate. You do have to "connect" with people -- preferably people you know and trust -- in order to contact other LinkedIn members. But there is no limit on how many connections you can have. The typical person can easily find several hundred people they know who are already members (and they give you a tool to automate this). Once you've started identifying the relationships you already have, it's very easy to send introduction requests -- no, not directly, but through your trusted contacts. With just 100 connections, you should have visibility into 2 to 3 million people. The fact that you have to establish your existing relationships within the system in order to contact other people is kind of the whole point -- certainly not a deception. --24.27.11.88 18:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, judging from the above response, LinkedIn is working this page pretty hard. 192.91.173.42 (talk) 18:52, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale for Image:Linkedin Logo.gif

Image:Linkedin Logo.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 00:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale for Image:Linkedin Logo.gif

Image:Linkedin Logo.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 00:24, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These blogs usefully describe LinkedIn, its services, relevant news, and tips from insiders on how to get the most from LinkedIn's service.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.181.214.127 (talk • contribs) 09:55, June 18, 2007 (UTC)

Please read our external links guidelines and note that Wikipedia is not a guidebook for LinkedIn or anything else. --ElKevbo 15:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Referring to Wikipedia's guidelines for external links - "such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as... amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks)".

LinkedIn may not be appreciated by everyone, but it is useful to many. 65% of business people use it, the average Harvard grad has 48-connections, 11-million users in. The Wikipedia entry for LinkedIn is limited and should be expanded to contain further research made available by serious bloggers. --I3142p168 22:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about other editors but I'd never give a blanket approval for blogs as External links in any article. It might be helpful if you could make a case for each blog you think should be added to this article. As a reminder, the particular blogs removed most recently were:
--ElKevbo 22:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cases For These Specific Blogs

These four blogs are selected specifically because each describes the ways that LinkedIn actually works, what it is and is not, with news, facts and statistics on user participation and system efficacy. All of these seem to be credible, authoritative and of interest to researchers, news publications, and authors, which would seem to make these additions to the Wikipedia article practical.

Sounds good to me. The company's official blog seems like a good one to include. --ElKevbo 14:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lee Hill's "Living LinkedIn" Blog And Open Invitation Reports day-to-day appearances of LinkedIn in the news and how LinkedIn works in practice. The blog's author has been quoted in the WSJ as a result of LinkedIn. Gives specific examples of how LinkedIn sub-groups, eg, the Sun Micro Alumni group, MIT, Vancouver Law Librarians, the philanthropic LinkedIn For Good, at al use LinkedIn to manage their groups... how they use if to access one another's networks, knowledge, etc.
Sounds good to me. --ElKevbo 14:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a compelling reason to include this blog. --ElKevbo 14:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

--I3142p168 13:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on the fence about this one. It looks like it should be used as a reference but not an external link. --ElKevbo 14:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't references meant to validate existing content, whereas external links expound on what's already available in the article with additional, accurate and relevant information? The content for the LinkedIn article is limited, do you feel that the external links substantiate the content rather than add to it? --I3142p168 23:09, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Privacy issues

As of October 2006, there is no automated way to remove yourself from LinkedIn. The official method is to file a customer support ticket (see "Accessing and Changing Your Account Information" [1]). A workaround some have suggested is to simply change your name.

Um... This is a joke, right? If not, please clarify what this means. Otherwise, someone please remove this. --Roger McCoy 19:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Suppose idea was to change your profile name (like to Mr. None Existant etc), and hence void the privacy concern by making it unconnectable to your real name. Tested the suggested method (works), and changed the sentence to more clear one (also removing the passive 'some have suggested' tone) lav 12:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recently added link not really within guidelines and should be removed. --I3142p168 20:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done  DangerousNerd  talk 20:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cases To Re-Add LinkedIn Blogs

The discussion of this subject ceased without a conclusion being reached. I will re-add the external links to these blogs if there's no further comment. --I3142p168 00:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Plaxo a Competitor?

Why is Plaxo listed as a competitor to Linkedin? To the contrary, they are entirely complementary.

how to pronounce it ?

link'd in ?

I think you have it right. There is no emphasis on either syllable, both equal...but I don't have a source for that, just how I hear people saying it.Wikidemo 16:07, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be pronounced /link.din/ as it sounds in this video. Ftiercel (talk) 15:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all--it's pronounced as it's spelled, that is, "linked in," with equal emphasis on both syllables. Jack(Lumber) 23:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism section

Please review this point before deleting the section again.

The section includes a statement that the LinkedIn service does not provide a way to add/register an additional e-mail address to a master account. The first e-mail address may have 10 contacts, and the second e-mail address may have 5 contacts. They both belong to the same user.

The user may have both a Yahoo account as well as a Hotmail account, for example, and for some reason started two LinkedIn accounts.

First, it is not easy to find the "register additional e-mails" button. (It is down, off the main screen, in a third level menu.)

Secondly, when attempting to add an additional "mature" LinkedIn e-mail address (one that already has existing contacts), LinkedIn responds with A problem has been encountered with this e-mail address, and spits the user back to the registration page, without offering to explain why the problem is happeningor how to fix it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.106.187.2 (talk) 22:26, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a personal beef rather than real criticism, and original research to boot. Even if it were true and sourced, unless a reliable source singles this out as a significant problem that is unique to Linkedin, it wouldn't even be pertinent if trus. I've therefore removed it.Wikidemo 22:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is not a "personal beef", it is something that affects all of LinkedIn's users (millions of accounts). The ability to pool from more than one list of contacts is at the very heart of the product/service in question. The main feature of LinkedIn is to connect to others, by way of your list of contacts. An overwhelming majority of individuals have had more than one e-mail in their lifetime, I don't think that is in dispute. Therefore there is an unresolved issue that exists which affects a core component of the product and affects millions of its users. Jerome Wiley Segovia 11:09 AM EST 10/2/2007
This is not a good place for criticism of one of a site's non-core features, based on personal observation. It may be a very good and astute personal observation. But if there's a bug or a feature problem that makes the site less useful than it could be, they'll deal with it in good time. Or they won't. If it's not newsworthy to other people it shouldn't be in the article, though. As an encyclopedia we rely on the fact-checking, neutrality, balance, and context of reliable published sources to tell us what is worth reporting and what is not. Moreover, as I've said I don't think it's pertinent to an understanding of what LinkedIn is or its context in the world of social/business networking sites. That's our job here, to be a compendium of human knowledge - not a product review/guide. I'm not just nitpicking here. We couldn't be a good product guide even if we wanted. C/Net has a leg up there because you can count on their having actually looked at and tested software in a dispassionate way. Here, notices of software feature problems would always be spotty and unpredictable. Without context, it's impossible to get a sense of whether this illustrates a design/engineering weakness of the company, an isolated goof, a reasonable balance of competing goals, an uncompleted code-base, or something intrinsic to account maintenance that affects all sites.Wikidemo 16:05, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nevertheless, I won't remove it again. I just took a look. The mention as it now stands is pretty innocuous, and reasonably informative. If they ever fix this, it can come out. Wikidemo 16:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

used technologies

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/technology/web-development/TCH_WDD/7699-9211409

UML Diagram = Overkill

I have to say that the UML diagram in this article is extreme overkill. It adds very little value, is impossible to read, and is of questionable validity. I suggest removal -- perhaps replacement with a simpler version of the diagram. 71.216.39.194 (talk) 23:34, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree - I'm not even sure what benefit is offered by showing the database design, as it's nothing unique. --Lone C (talk) 20:02, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. It is interesting. I'm not that familiar with UML, yet I have no trouble reading it. (Then again, databases are my area, so that's what makes it interesting :-).) Still: 1) it is not really related to what the article is about, and 2) sourcing is unclear, it looks like WP:OR to me (and indeed should be deleted in that case!). GregorB (talk) 21:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do not understand why it is "overkill", but I can imagine that you find it overkill. The fact that it is "impossible to read" is questionable. As a matter of fact all the terms are in english and it shows what are the main concepts of LinkedIn. I admit that the readability is a real question, but I would say that someone with no knowledge could read the words, while someone with more knowledge could read more. A very important point is that this diagram is NOT a "database design". This is a conceptual diagram and it does not show in any sense how the database is implemented (that would be not relevant). Lately I'm not sure to understand why it is not related to LinkedIn since it only speaks about LinkedIn. In fact I'm open to all suggestions and would like to better understand why the description of the concepts managed by a systems are irrelevant with the respect to the description of the system. Is it just a matter of form ? If the same piece of information was represented as text, it would be ok, no? (in fact I plan to put more models on wikipedia, so I'm really interested in having this discussion) Thanks in advance. User:Jean-Marie_Favre —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.88.254.195 (talk) 16:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are a number of problems. One primary issue is original research. It contains observations, and analysis, of the LinkedIn site, made from and verifiable only by direct examination of the site itself. I won't try to justify this because it's a basic universal principle of Wikipedia, but we only offer material that has already been published in reliable sources, not new analysis of article subjects made specifically for Wikipedia. Whereas most images do not have the same verifiability concerns, a chart made from data or analysis raises the question of what the data is and where it comes from. Second, although it's not rocket science to create or read one of these, it is a technical document that probably goes beyond most people's heads. As someone with some computer background I don't find it very useful to understand LinkedIn. If I want to know how it works I can just go to the site and see for myself (although if I were doing some analysis or design based on LinkedIn, the diagram would be a good starting point and save me some work). Third, it's nonstandard. It's useful to have some consistency among articles about similar subjects so people know what to expect out of Wikipedia. There may be some other UML diagrams but I haven't noticed them - most articles don't have this. Fourth, it is unreadable in the condensed version in the article. You have to click on it to expand. That's a stylistic issue. Anyway, I don't think all of this is very important. It's harmless and someone obviously spent a lot of time working on it. The article is far from perfect in so many other ways, so I haven't felt any urge to delete it myself. If the article were an especially good, complete one I would be a little more concerned with perfecting it. Wikidemo (talk) 19:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, fine. Thanks for this long answer. I appreciated it very much. I totally agree with the sentence "It contains observations, and analysis, of the LinkedIn site, made from and verifiable only by direct examination of the site itself.", which is absolutely true, but I didn't thought this was a problem, on the contrary. I will revise the WO:OR to better understand. WRT the second point "a technical document that probably goes beyond most people's heads" I'm not sure, but I agree that this raise a question. With respect to "nonstandard" I defintively agree. In fact I was planning to add similar diagrams for other Social network, so that one can easily compare the various feature offered by each one, and I didn't find where to ask for advice for doing that, so I just started with linkedin. As you pointed out "It contains observations, and analysis, of the LinkedIn site, made from and verifiable only by direct examination of the site itself.", so the information is easily verifiable. I would say that the source is linkedin, but I admit that this is questionable. Ok, anyway, thanks for this reply. Is there some place where it would be appropriate to discuss the use of diagram to model concepts. I mean this point has nothing to do with linkedin and it is a much more general issue. Again if this were a piece of text this would not be considered as an issue because it just describes the concepts of linkedin. The fact that it is shown in a compact and graphical way do not fundamentally change its nature. Words and images are of the same nature (dixit magritte). In all cases, just let me know what is the appropriate place to discuss this topic. Thanks. User:Jean-Marie_Favre


This is clearly original research, unless you can point to a published source with this UML diagram. Deleted again, as this is the clear consensus. --99.233.122.100 (talk) 01:41, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Valuation

Will people please stop removing the $1 billion valuation figure? Pre and post-money valuations, as established by venture capital investments, are the standard way for reporting valuations of venture-financed companies. Like it or not, that's how it is. Deleting them because you think the dot com bubble is too big or the company is overvalued is POV. It's not an attempt to say what the company is intrinsically worth. It's a way to report a transaction. The information is sourced, and more than verifiable - 450+ google news hits worth of verifiability.[1] Thanks, Wikidemo (talk) 05:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. The statement taken at face value is that a bunch of VC firms bought a 5% stake at $53 million. That the company is worth $1 billion comes from Linkedin's own PR and then media sites simply reporting it without disputing it. Look at Microsoft's 1.6% stake in Facebook. After the deal happened, Facebook's own press release stated the company was worth $15 billion, and the media took it as fact. It was only until recently, when an ugly lawsuit reared its head was it known that FB later placed a much lower internal valuation at $3.75 billion. And even then, some analysts are arguing that it's still too high because the site has yet to prove that it has a profitable long term business model. The exact same thing applies here. We're not trying to inject our own POV, but you can't simply quote everything as reported straight out of the company's own PR department, either. Unless you have a personal interest in linkedin why do you care so much about this? Wikipedian06 (talk) 02:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You do not seem to understand how venture capital transactions work. It's simple arithmetic - not disputable. $53M / 5% = $1.060. That is the way venture rounds are measured. There is no other way. It's not supposed to describe the intrinsic worth of the company. It's a deal metric. Please review the pre-money valuation and post-money valuation articles. You can review this[2] if you don't understand. Of course there are reliable sources if this has to be proven but it's all textbook VC 101 stuff. There is no other way to report valuation of venture capital transactions. There's nothing POV about arithmetic. I'm reverting. You can take this to dispute resolution if you want, but I assure you, it's solid, basic stuff.Wikidemo (talk) 02:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, the lawsuit you refer to was a suit against Facebook for theft of intellectual property. Company valuation was not at issue in the litigation except with respect to establishing the value of the company for purposes of royalty value / damages of the intellectual property Facebook allegedly misappropriated from ConnectU. You mis-cited the source and did the analysis wrong on the Facebook article. The Wall Street Journal article you quoted used the lawsuit's disclosure of a $3.75B internal valuation as a hook for explaining the issue, not saying there was any dispute or discrepancy. You should reread that source and the talk page there because that needs to be fixed too. Wikidemo (talk) 02:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. It's important to include a very high valuation of LinkedIn, otherwise noone will join. LinkedIn is business-oriented, and we will use wikipedia (and all other changeable media) for business purposes. Just one more reason to join. You'll understand later if you don't right now.99.8.225.97 (talk) 03:29, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New "criticisms"

I don't think any of the new criticisms are sourced well enough, or relevant enough, to include. Some of it seems to be original research or opinion of the writer, pointing out a site feature or limitation and saying it is a "criticism". Other stuff is cited to blogs or commentators, and just isn't very helpful. You can take almost any feature on any major web service, and find some tech blogger who thinks it is the greatest thing and another who thinks it is evil. At a minimum, to find fault one would have to source it to significant reliable coverage in major publications, but even there we generally don't repeat critiques and opinions because we're not set up to be a very reliable guide. It's hard to put in context. For example, limiting the number and speed of acquiring new friends is something nearly every social network is starting to do. Facebook limits invitations to 20 per day and has a 5,000 friend limit, which is unrealistically high if you look at the way real social networks work - anyone with 5,000 "friends" is using the feature in a way other than as intended. If LinkedIn makes a policy change then invariably someone is going to blog about it, but I don't think we can realistically put that in context here in a Wikipedia article. Best to point someone to the blogs if necessary and let them read it in more detail. Wikidemo (talk) 19:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Influence of LinkedIn

For a while now, I've thought that this article is relatively short, compared to the influence of LinkedIn (or the potential for influence). An internet company with a valuation of $1B would seem to be a very hot property. LinkedIn itself seems somewhat of a mystery to me. On the one hand, it is worth $1B, and its user base of 25 million puts it in the top 20 of social networking sites. On the other hand, LinkedIn has only several hundred employees and an Alexa score of 205 (whereas MySpace and FaceBook are in the top 5). I suspect that there is a deeper influence that LinkedIn is having on business and society that is not captured by its Alexa number or its low corporate profile. Something seems to be brewing here that many people are missing. If there are some acceptable sources on this topic, it might be good to add information about this to the article. --Westwind273 (talk) 20:09, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Community issues - autocensure

From this discussion it appears that (quoting)

Customer Service once wrote me your question or answer has to be flagged three times before it's automatically deleted. That means it takes only three jealous people and you're out. I can say that from my own experience.

The thread shows it is easy to delete other peoples threads, no countersanctioning is apparent. Clearly it lends itself to easy abuse by using just 2 sockpuppets. The thread (2 pages currently) points out problems affecting more than just one person.

Something to work into the article? --20:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.164.183.79 (talk)

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