[Fredslist] What exactly is LinkedIn? The answer.

[jeff n]

The best way to think about LinkedIn is that it allows you to view, and use, the address books / rolodexes of everyone in your address book, and everyone in THEIR address book, and so on. However, the website itself includes many limitations on communication between various levels. 

For example, sending an "invitation" is the equivalent of walking over to someone after a Gotham Meeting and getting their business card. If the other party accepts the invitation, then they will appear in your address book as a first degree connection. 

"Introductions" work a bit differently. Again with the Gotham meeting analogy, the LinkedIn introduction is the virtual equivalent of asking an acquaintance for an introduction to someone that you see them talking to at the Gotham meeting. LinkedIn's introduction function lets you send a message directly to someone you don't know, accompanied by a "Request for introduction" THROUGH the person that you do know. Thus an approximation of a real life introduction. 

The power of LinkedIn comes from the fact that there is no limit to the number of "layers of acquaintance" that you can potentially browse through, starting with people you actually know (or have invited.) This is the equivalent of the old gossip type statement "My boss's wife's co-worker's friend's cousin's uncle told me..."

Anyone can begin to explore the power of this system. Just go to http://www.linkedin.com/ and create an account, and click in the search box and search for ME (Jeffrey Nosanov.) Then you can add me as a connection. One of the safety features of LinkedIn is that it will not let you add as a first degree connection unless you know the person well enough to know their email address. Feel free to put in my email (jeffnosanov at yahoo.com) and thereby add me as a connection. You can then look at my connections to see all the people I have in my "address book." 

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about this powerful tool.

Incidentally, this is pretty much how Myspace and Facebook work. Those two sites have more security and safety features, however, as their focus is on keeping information private from other people, as opposed to LinkedIn, whose focus is on the exchange of information between people.

-Jeff




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