Archive for July, 2005
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Interesting and exciting changes forthcoming on LinkedIn!
As a user, I greatly appreciate the portal for bringing about improvements that will help me be a more effective and efficient networker. |
From Dave Taylor’s Blog:
“Marketing VP and LinkedIn Co-Founder Konstantin Guericke just gave me the go-ahead to share this exciting information about a major new functionality that’ll be added to LinkedIn a few weeks from now! Here’s what he shared about InMail and how it’ll work. As for me, I can’t wait to be able to really tap the power of the entire LinkedIn member database, not just the subset my contacts are in touch with…
As you know from my prior posts and requests for input, we’ve been working on the design for key improvements to LinkedIn in the areas of search and making contact as well as providing for a sustainable revenue model and allowing everyone to understand what premium services are being charged for.
Next month, we’ll be launching the ability to search beyond your personal network and to contact people through InMail. In addition to results from your personal network, you will be able to see the best results from the entire LinkedIn Network. For example…“
For full post please visit here.
July 20th, 2005
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I had no idea there was a way of viewing comparison graphs too! So here they are: |
This one is a comparison of the Site Ranks.
The red line is LinkedIn and the blue line is openBC. Note that since this is a ranking graph, the units on the Y-axis start from about 80,000 and go upto 2000 – since a lower number would mean a better rank.
This one is a comparison of Daily Reach – measured by the number of people per million who use / visit the website daily. Honestly, this was quite surprising – even though LinkedIn has 3 million members and openBC 500,000, the only explanation why openBC’s reach graph is higher is the usage. openBC users seem to be utilizing the system well!
This one is a comparison of the Page Views.
The above point about the Daily Reach is proved right when we look at this graph – there are almost similar Page View graphs for both openBC and LinkedIn even though LinkedIn has 6 times more members that openBC.
Usability of the openBC interface seems to be higher – no surprise considering the number of flexible features that they have provided. I do like the colors on LinkedIn better [ being the designer that I am ] ! I admit both platforms might have different value offerings but we’re talking business networking here and the common thread would be to facilitate connections.
The above data can be looked at in detail here.
Please note, the reason I have not bothered to include any other comparisons is because the only two serious online “business networking” portals are openBC and LinkedIn – if you feel otherwise – feel free to comment and post further on you blog! I’ll be happy to link!
July 18th, 2005
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The statistics never lie! This is meant to be part II for the “Why openBC?” post on this blog. [ All data from Alexa ] |
openBC site daily reach for the last to years
LinkedIn site daily reach for the last to years
openBC site stats
LinkedIn site stats
More details for openBC on Alexa and LinkedIn on Alexa
July 18th, 2005
Paul Allen, who had been interviewed for the Entrepreneur.com article also mentions my comment as being an “interesting response” on his blog. Thank you.
I appreciate the medium of blogging and the online business networking portals for inspiration – I have been allowed to connect and interact with people I never would have known in my entire lifetime otherwise.
July 18th, 2005
1. MyLinkedinPowerForum
2. LinkedInnovators and
3. LinkedInBloggers
In the past month, I have sent over a hundred “Requests to Connect” to people who have clearly mentioned on their profiles that:
1. They are open to invitations to connect and
2. Have listed their e-mail id’s
But of course these people are strangers to me – personally.
My invitation e-mail to them contained a paragraph similar to the one below:
“I would like to connect networks with you to increase the visibility of my profile and my business services.”
My aim in doing this was two-fold: to be straightforward about my reason for requesting to connect with them and also to see what the response would be. Apart from the above text, the rest of the request e-mail was customized for each person.
Time and again, I have re-iterated that when we want to connect with someone we do not know [ that's part of the point of networking isn't it? that we connect with virtual strangers, get to know them better, invest time in building a relationship and create friends / business associates for life ], we must be clear why we want to connect with them. Once that clarity is achieved in our minds, we can translate that into a “suitable” e-mail and send it across.
I got positive replies to 21 of the 100 requests that I sent that included the text above. Another six replied in the negative and the remaining did not reply.
1. Being straighforward / honest about one’s intent does not always work.
2. People who list their e-mail id’s on their profiles and clearly state that they are open to connecting, are not necessarily going to connect even if they say so.
3. A selfish-sounding “anything” will get rejected 75% of the time.
I also sent requests to connect to other people – who had their e-mails listed on their profiles and clearly stated that they were open to connecting – without the above-mentioned text. Although I was connecting with them for visibility purposes, I did not mention that in my message – I simply stated “It would be a pleasure to connect networks with you. I am [short description of my business]. My web presence [list of blogs/websites that I write / those that identify me].”
90% of these requests were accepted.
I guess being diplomatic always counts.
I’d like to thank the 21 people who replied in the positive to my e-mails and would like to acknowledge their spirit in accepting the connection requests.
July 18th, 2005
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