I have joined many social networking sites over the years and I have found all of them to be a waste of time, but in varying degrees, with MySpace being the most useless, followed by Tribe, Friendster and Orkut. I recently joined Facebook because my San Francisco tech buddies are all piling into it. But after a month, I am barely using it. If you have nothing else to do with your time, Facebook and its cousins are perfect.

Linked In is not a social networking site per se because it’s not meant for socializing. Members don’t post racy photos, or indeed any photos at all. It does not ask you to list your hobbies, favorite films and music, or the name of your dog. It’s a business networking service. But it did not work for me so this week, I asked them to delete me from the Linked In database.

What I did not like about Linked In

(1) Endorsement feature needs to be fixed.

I endorsed three people out of my own initiative because I know them well and value their work. However, people I barely know have asked me to endorse them and I am not comfortable with that. Because I am the “face” of Muniwireless and have a high profile in these circles, my endorsement is valuable to many people in the business. I don’t like being pestered for endorsements. I have never asked for one either because I find it too “in your face” and aggressive.

(2) A giant list of connections, yielding nothing.

So I ended up with hundreds of connections. So? What did I do with them? Nothing. Every now and then, I would get an email from Linked In informing me that one or more of my connections updated their profile. I couldn’t care less. If someone I know well and care about updates his or her contact details, I get it by email from the person directly. No need for Linked In to tell me that. Total waste of time.

(3) I have no incentive to share my network.

If the whole point of Linked In is business networking and I have a valuable network especially since I have a high profile in the municipal broadband space, what incentive is there for me to share my network with people on Linked In? I couldn’t find any so I left.

Time to declutter

I am presently decluttering my life - removing useless blogs from my RSS newsreader, deleting old files and emails, unsubscribing from mailing lists. Linked In fell into that category called Clutter. To their credit, they responded immediately to my request:

Thank you for contacting LinkedIn Customer Service. We have removed your account and all associated information. Since your account is now closed, you will no longer receive emails through LinkedIn or be able to log into the LinkedIn system. You can reactivate your LinkedIn account by contacting Customer Service.

Technorati Tags: ,

Sphere: Related Content