Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Has LinkedIn Jumped the Shark?

Last night my mother called me with a serious concern in her tone. She stated, "There is this web site and all of your information is on it!" I was alarmed and asked what kind of information and she stated that it said where I went to college and even had my resume posted. She sounded worried that someone was stealing my information and posting my secret work history on the internet and that perhaps there were even some nude pictures posted. After some more questions, I realized that she was actually referring to my profile on LinkedIn. I assured her that I actually posted my own information and that LinkedIn was a legitimate professional networking for people to connect with other professionals, search for jobs and connect with colleagues and also that it is a rapidly growing social network. She had no idea what I was talking about. She still thinks I'm spending all my time on friendster.com. She still tells my sister, I won't answer the phone because I am "on AOL doing friendster." She is so wrong. Friendster is so 2002. Last year, I was spending a lot of time "doing myspace." Recently, I've been spending a few minutes "doing LinkedIn" but spend most of my time counting my points on WeightWatchers.com, a site that never goes out of style. She doesn't even know about D-Listed, and she'd love the gossip but I don't want her snooping around my online addictions anymore. Then, she stated she wanted to "snoop" around on LinkedIn but didn't want to register her own profile so she can protect her privacy. I explained that career networking is not a bad thing, but it is hard to argue with a woman who won't give out her cell phone number so she won't be bothered when out of the house. Oh, and she insists that dial-up service is better than DSL. What does this all mean? Has LinkedIn jumped the shark?

0 comments:

statcounter