According to the article, LinkedIn Wants Users to Connect More, the professional networking site is continually adding new features to create more ways for users to interact. Research firm comScore said that visitors "spent about 13 minutes on average at LinkedIn during October, while
Facebook users logged about 213 minutes and MySpace users spent 87
minutes."
One way that LinkedIn is trying to do this is allowing third-party developers to create new applications for the site. Unlike Facebook, all applications accepted to LinkedIn must be professionally oriented. Based on this data, you can see why LinkedIn is trying to find ways to create more stickiness to its site. LinkedIn will soon be offering some new subscription packages that could incentive people to use the site more as well.
According to the author of the article mentioned, LinkedIn is "mostly used by professionals to post their resumes and by corporate recruiters looking for talent." I disagree with this statement because LinkedIn has a thriving community of groups in which users interact and share their expertise. At the same time, LinkedIn is a great tool to make some new contacts. After all, that is one of the primary reasons to use the system. Also, it is true that recruiters use LinkedIn to find talent but users also use LinkedIn to find jobs.
What are your thoughts about LinkedIn? Do you think that it will lose out to other sites such as Facebook and MySpace?
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While the right third party applications will help to enhance the LinkedIn experience for some, I think that the focus is in the wrong place. Rather than offering users more applications, which will only confuse many as other sites have found, LinkedIn should focus on educating their members how to make the most of the site. The fact is that you should be able to spend less time on LinkedIn than on other sites and still get greater rewards, if you use the site effectively and target the right return.
Posted by: Andy Lopata | December 31, 2009 at 08:03 AM
Andy, your comments are excellent. I agree that LI needs to educate it users on how to best use the site. I think that we would all like to spend less time on these sites if we could find a way to get the results we want more efficiently and effectively.
Posted by: Jason Jacobsohn | December 31, 2009 at 04:56 PM