Who’s to blame for all the clutter appearing on LinkedIn?

It is a debate with regards to the social network interface of Linkedin, which is pretty much Facebook’s. Personally, I only connect with close friends and family on Facebook, so Linkedin gives me an opportunity to ‘network’ with my business card holder; it has it’s pro’s and I have gained success in work, from doing so.

The con’s with Linkedin becoming more ‘facebookised’ are seeing endless posts, by the usual suspects of nothing but drivel. The self publishing function, whilst it does produce great posts and even some influential posts (Matt Barry). It can enable anyone to write an article and that results in a one sided agenda fest = ‘block’ or “not again?!”. Now, if Linkedin can fine tune the algo and perhaps offer a ‘rate this article’ function, we could see the future of business publishing right there. If every article in my feed was quality; I would look at it on my commute, everyday…

I wish Linkedin would add a function to contain how many job title’s you can have. If I was paid a dollar for the amount of people who are self described speakers, entrepreneurs, authors, motivators (add further buzzwords here), I would be a rich man. Self proclaimed CEO’s of a company of 3 people and zero revenue. Linkedin could tighten this up also.

I look at the various uses of Linkedin: recruitment, networking / selling, publishing / information and of course, with Lynda; learning. If it can be polished, it could be an absolute diamond.

Interesting perspective, Tym.

Linkedin has become the Frequent Flyers lounge and what you are suggesting is something like the Chairman’s Club. Not in any hierarchical sense, but more in the fact that the overtly professional origins of Linkedin seems to be crowded out with In-flight magazines, Bintang t-shirts and thongs (sorry, sandals and socks). It appears that the environment is being increasingly cluttered and degraded in the name of utility creep and facilitating monetisation.

Of course you can set your profile to dial out the incoming noise, but as you mention and as other have successfully fought Linkedin within the courts, you have little control as to how your profile may be used to annoy others.

http://fortune.com/2015/10/05/.....ss-action/

I agree there is a place for a reversion to the rigidly professional origins of Linkedin. Whether that’s a LinkedinPro or a gap in the market for a new entrant.

I like it as it allows me to share Richard Branson articles and Gary Vanyerchuck videos about why it’s good to fail. I also like “reaching out” to people I don’t know as I’d like to hit “500+” status.

Regards,
Standard-issue LinkedIn Wanker

@Entrepreneur, innovator, digital evangelist, social media ninja.

You (madam / sir?) just made my day. Hilarious!

yeah, that’s a great comment, +1 to the social media ninja

I agree fully with Tym. LinkedIn has started to have all that same clutter which adds no value. When my linkedin feed has posts with headings such as “read this” or “this is really good” or “a great quote” or “latest update” I wonder who thinks that such posts will make me want to open them or that they will add lustre to their profile?
Please linked in, let’s get back to basics.

Brilliant Ninja!

when the bloke who frames my pictures endorsed me for digital strategy I realised LinkedIn probably isn’t a true barometer of talent

A basic IQ test to qualify listing would get rid of the wanders. But Linked In would go too.

This week on LinkedIn I remember seeing a great video on Snapchat versus Facebook, a huge amount of updates around International Women’s Day and the major issues around gender equality. I also noticed that this article has been shared 69 times already on LinkedIn. Seems like pretty decent content to me.

LinkedIn seems to go out of its way to annoy me – from trying to force me to invite my entire email database as a “connection” to spamming my feed with posts from people I’ve never heard of asking me to pray for their sick child.

I’d like less social network and more professional service please.

“Appropriate” is a completely subjective characteristic. There are some things which 99.9% of the people out there would consider to be in appropriate on LinkedIn. But overall, it’s a continuum.

To me, inspirational quotes are ok. However, I can’t tell you how many times I have seen the same quotes over and over, with different pictures, mis-attribution, etc. I mostly try to post my OWN “inspirational quotes”; i.e. things that are my own.

Brain teaser puzzles, math problems, women in bikinis or models who are “just promoting their ‘marketing’ business” really have no place on LinkedIn in my opinion. Neither do pictures of women who are wearing outfits that they would go out clubbing in (aka hooker wear). But again, totally subjective.

I have tried blocking the OPs so that I don’t see the crap I don’t want to see. However, LinkedIn only let’s you block so many people. In most cases, I am not even connected to the idiots who post that stuff. However, if someone I am connected to comments on any of these things, it ends up in my feed. I don’t want to unfollow them just because they posted a comment. So, why not allow me to block things my connections comment on?

Another idea: An inappropriate button or an “Dislike” button. YouTube has the “thumbs-down” option. It’s time LinkedIn and Facebook implemented it too.

Then, if there is stuff that has a lot of “Dislikes”, it won’t show up at the top of my news feed.

That’s another thing, LinkedIn is really disrespectful to me, a paying customer, because they don’t let me permanently see “Recent Updates”. They force me to view what they consider to be “Top Updates”, which is usually complete crap.

-Daniel