What LinkedIn Could Learn From OKCupid and Others (iamvictorio.us) |
What LinkedIn Could Learn From OKCupid and Others (iamvictorio.us) |
Linkedin will show you a login-like screen with your email address pre-populated and a password prompt. Two dangerous things can happen: 1) a user can absent-mindedly assume they're at their email login page and type in their email password (less likely) 2) a user can absent-mindedly assume that this is the Linkedin login page and type in their Linkedin password.
The problem with (1) (and 2 if your email password is the same as your linkedin password) is that you've just given Linkedin access to your email contact list. Then Linkedin can shoot an email to all your contacts letting them know you're on Linkedin / etc.
To me this is a form of phishing that countless less-tech-savvy folks are getting caught up in and should not be OKAY in the industry.
During signup, if you are on one of the major webmail services, it will explicitly ask you to authorize yourself on them so it can get your contacts however.
Having worked there and specifically as product manager for the Who Viewed My Profile portion, I can tell you that they take privacy very seriously.
But many people might interpret that as a LinkedIn log-in form (not realizing that they are already logged in). If LinkedIn just had an ad there asking people to click a button to then fill out their e-mail address/password, they would likely have much fewer people let LinkedIn look at their e-mail account.
This is much more legit than just trying the Linkedin account username/password to access the e-mail account, but it is still a form of phishing.
Likewise, encouraging "random friends" would degrade the value of LinkedIn's network. Part of its current value is that your "connections" presumably have a real link (work history or friendship) with all of their "connections" and can potentially make a worthwhile recommendation or introduction. This goes away if randomness is introduced.
Dating sites are barely social networks - they exist to facilitate quick one-on-one interactions - so social networks should copy their features with extreme caution.
There's lots of reasons why I don't want people to know. Like for example, a friend works at company x, so every so often I look at other employee profiles at company x to see if he joined LinkedIn (and is therefore in their connections).
Just harmless stuff like that, which might look sinister to someone who doesn't know the context.
I think this is an alarming trend on social networking sites. As saturdaysaint already pointed out, this is okay for dating web sites, because the point of them is to encourage pairings between members. Social networks, like facebook, and professional networks, like LinkedIn, have grown to the point where they are virtual address books containing more than just information about your contacts, but up to date information about the activities and interests that they choose to disclose.
Product management teams need to tread carefully when introducing features that go against the grain of real-life interaction. To me, page view notifications are the virtual equivalent of a little voice alerting you whenever someone has mentioned your name in conversation. Absent of context, what could you rationally infer from this notification? Context is key, and without delivering that, the notice is at best worthless and at worst dangerous.
A year ago LinkedIn released the "Publications" section for your profile: http://blog.linkedin.com/2010/10/18/linkedin-profile-section...
Now you can list your academic papers on your profile, awesome. The problem being that YOU are listed in the "first author" position on any paper you submit. Author-order being very important, this is a major issue that should have been caught in the spec stage. It hasn't been fixed in over a year.