Archive for May, 2006
Rediff Connexions is an India-based online networking portal. I’ve desisted long enough from mentioning the same on this blog because I did not believe it was a serious online “business” networking portal and leaned more towards social networking.
In the past few months, however, I’ve been hearing more and more about the portals and since I have been a registered member since their early days, I’ve re-visited and am glad to report that they’ve made much progress. They are definitely not in league with our usual portals like LinkedIn, openBC and even Ryze, but it’s the first sincere effort by an Indian portal to tap the online business networking crowd.
They’ve also got me featured on their main page [ which is another reason why I thought it would be a good idea to finally mention Rediff Connexions 
]
While I’m not a fan of their interface, they could use some help with the design – in terms of functionality as well as aesthetics – they do allow the following basic functions:
- Creating your profile – with regular details concerning professional experience, interests etc.
- a basic mechanism to invite people to connect with you on the portal
- a basic mechanism to maintian your network, remove contact, send messages, keep track of contact details etc.
- Groups [ I haven't used this function at all so I am not capable of reviewing just yet! ]
They also have a decent Search function, which helps you get in touch with other people on the network.
The main DashBoard page also gives tidbits of information about new members on the network, people who’s birthdays are coming up, total people on the network who are in the same industry as your own, etc.
One main issue on their website currently is that I am unable to find the page that will help me get to invitations and message that people have sent for me on Rediff Connexions! Only when I click on the link in their intimation e-mail am I taken to those pages – getting to them independently is a whole different ballgame – unless I save the specific URL of course.
Rediff Connexions is definitely a bold initiative, but they need to work a whole lot more if they want to become a serious player in the online business networking market. They are still in beta.
May 23rd, 2006
The openBC network is planning a meet of all India, Mumbai members on the 25th of May, 2006.
More details within openBC.
Venue:
The Liquid Lounge
534, S.V.P.Road,
Opera House,
Mumbai.
Tel.: 23631284, 23617171
Person to contact for further details:
Netra Parikh : +91 98673 60396
Timing: 7:30 pm or 1930 hours.
There is a per head charge of INR 450, which includes heavy snacks, soft drnks and dessert and there’s a mention of hard drinks at discounted rates.
I’m planning to go – lets see whether I actually land up there – if I do, will report on how it went and whether it was useful.
May 22nd, 2006
One of the recent additional changes on LinkedIn is that when you log into your account, the main “dashboard” page contains a section, which gives a snippet of information of some users in your network.
For example, if I am one of your direct contacts on LinkedIn, you will currently see the following [ I've deliberately left out other users info ]:
So you’ll know I’m in the networking zone these days.
Which has it’s upside and downside – for regular online networking enthusiasts, they will wonder what I’m upto and might send me an update e-mail. But for the no-so-enthusiastic networkers, they might see me as a connection-hound.
I’ve had varying feedback on the feature from my contacts – the negative feedback includes the thought that it’s too much information and doesn’t really help in any way.
The way I look at it is that this is a feature that allows me to be in the minds of all my direct contacts whenever I want without my sending them personal e-mails. For me, it’s a great way to advertise – if only the announcement also included my company’s name and designation or atleast my profile headline.
Currently, the announcement – showing that I have added 25 connections – just lets my direct contacts know that I’m an avid netwoker with a very high positive return on investment – meaning that people will not hesitate to accept my invitation to connect when I’ve sent them an invite or that there are lots of people who want to connect with me.
I believe it’s a fantastic feature!
May 12th, 2006
Recently, on one of the LinkedIn Groups, Philippe Mesritz had mentioned something about Standard/BoilerPlate Invitations.
The bottom-line being that while there are many nouveau networkers who use the standard invitation text while sending an invitation to connect networks, the other issue is the “Accept” button when the receiver receives the invitation. Typically, this is what happens:
- “A” finds “B”‘s profile on LinkedIn who is a good prospect to connect with – in terms of business.
- “A” sends an Invitation to Connect to “B” but does not edit the boilerplate invitation text that LinkedIn provides.
- “B” receives the invitation and clicks on the link to “A”‘s profile to find out more about “A”.
- “B” believes the request is a good fit and wants to interact further with “A”, hence decides to connect with “A”.
- “B” clicks on the “Accept” button and “A” becomes a part of “B”‘s network – but the only problem is that “B” has to follow an extra step to get in touch with “A” – “B” has to open his/her e-mail client to write an e-mail to “A”.
What Philippe is proposing is to have an extra step within the LinkedIn system itself, which would enable the acceptor to write a personal message from withing the LinkedIn system.
My only grouse with the above suggestion is that when someone does write a personal message to me using the LinkedIn system, I don’t want to log into LinkedIn to read that message – I should then be able to follow-up that message from my personal e-mail client. Currently, that is one of the issues I have with openBC – once you start a conversation in the openBC system, you have to keep logging into openBC to check that inbox – which is an additional e-mail client to bother about.
Does LinkedIn have any bright ideas?
May 11th, 2006
Now when you edit your profile on LinkedIn, you can also add links [ yes, real, live URL links ] to your personal website, your personal blog and your company website for visitors to click on when they check out your profile.
A long-awaited and much appreciated addition to the profile on LinkedIn! Fantastic!
To get to those fields, just go and edit your profile on LinkedIn under the Additional Info section.
May 10th, 2006
