I just found a more useful way to search than Google. (Sort of.) It only works for a defined use case, but, in a search market that is 85% going on 90% Google-dominated, this can still be significant. The site that provides a better search experience than Google? Business social network LinkedIn. Long time readers of this blog know that I have already chronicled my success at using LinkedIn for both business development and recruiting. So it is not a surprise to me that LinkedIn is seeing easily the highest growth rate among social networking sites.
LinkedIn's 361% year-over-year growth handily beats Facebook's 56% growth in the same period, according to the latest stats from Nielsen:
However many people have pointed out to me that my case is unusual. I have been in business for 30 years and have worked across many markets, in many countries and I have worked the LinkedIn system to get those contacts usable. This puts me in the early adopter end for people of my age, which means that more people like me are likely to use LinkedIn more aggressively in the future. That fits the original mission of LinkedIn, which is to enable people to rebuild their relationship networks built up over years in business. That has been totally successful in my case. I have re-connected with people that I worked with over 20 years ago who are now senior people in specialist areas and I have found those connections valuable in my work.
However, LinkedIn is less useful to somebody without a deep network. For example, somebody just entering the workforce. Somebody who has probably had a great time at college using Facebook and finds the features on LinkedIn to be relatively primitive and well, kind of boring. And not that useful either, because while they can see who the right contacts are they are no more reachable than they are in ZoomInfo or any other public directory. Just because I have the name, address and email for Michael Moritz at Sequoia Capital does not mean that he will return my email/call. And having a way to spam him via InMail does not really help. Actually Michael Moritz and I attended the same college at the same time and he still won't return my email via LinkedIn. Probably, he knows that we did not actually meet at college and I probably want to pitch him on an investment. (Really, Mr. Moritz, I don't have a pitch for you... well not now at any rate.)
So even if I pay to upgrade to LinkedIn Business for $20 per month for the privilege of spamming (sorry, sending InMail) 3 people I don't know every month, it won't be much more useful than renting a list from a good old-fashioned arms dealer to the spam industry (aka the list rental industry, sometimes called Database Marketing). I have not upgraded and don't intend to on those terms. Herein lies a possible flaw in LinkedIn's business model - the people who will pay are the people without networks who need to sell to those who have networks, which may end up disappointing both parties.
Which is why my recent use of LinkedIn was so significant. It did not require my existing network to get results. I used the Questions & Answers feature to get answers to two real world questions. Both involved finding a specialist type of service provider that I needed in a hurry. I got the answer and I have hooked up with enough specialist vendors to get the job completed. Those vendors are now in my network. Done.
Before using LinkedIn, I tried Google. This eventually got me to some sites that maintained directories of these vendors, but it was still a lengthy process from there to get to a short-list. In one case my Google search got me to Yelp, where there was a rating for one of those vendors, but there was only 1 vendor in that category, so the rating wasn't useful.
Using LinkedIn, within 24 hours, I got recommendations on more than one vendor that were precise and ended up being very useful in finding a good fit.
The next day, by accident, I discovered a problem, though I think this problem is fixable by LinkedIn. The day after doing this search, I was talking to a friend about an entirely unrelated matter. He asked me if I had found that vendor that I was looking for. He was just making conversation, but I was concerned. "Did you get an email from me on this?" I asked him. It turns out that Questions send InMails (emails within LinkedIn) to all my contacts. I had no intention of spamming all my contacts to help with my fairly simple search. Sorry. Really. The form on LinkedIn specifically asks me if I want to restrict the Question to my contacts. I did not. I assumed that I needed to trawl wider than that. However I assumed (incorrectly it seems) that my contacts would not be sent InMails.
That is easily fixable by LinkedIn. They will have to fix this or risk really turning off their core community and fall into the, "oh, no, another annoying spammy tool" category. I am confident that LinkedIn is alert to this danger and will fix it.
What I assumed happens is that people with expertise in the area that I was interested in register on the site as willing to look at Questions relating to my area of interest. I am fully aware that this is self-selecting and will get me people with a commercial motivation to provide an Answer. Thats OK, I was not born yesterday, don't believe in Santa Claus and don't believe everything I read online or in print. Questioning every source is an ingrained and essential habit for most people. It still got me a useful short-list quicker than any other source. I did not need to perform lengthy searches on Google for a specialist directory or forum.
LinkedIn clearly needs to develop this feature more. Apart from preventing the spamming of my contacts, I expect them to refine the selection of experts. This is already self-selecting. When you send a Question, you select from categories and sub categories from a taxonomy that is quite intuitive for business people. I selected Hiring and Human Resources and then from that I selected Staffing and Recruiting. That means my Question only went to people who claim expertise in Staffing and Recruiting, which is like an uber-forum capability. I don't need to find a forum to find an expert, I just send a Question and the expert finds me. I can envisage LinkedIn refining the taxonomy further to get more fine-grained areas of expertise as the network grows. They will have to remain alert to commercial manipulation as vendors get more savvy about using this, but there are now fairly well established ways to do that and LinkedIn is a controlled environment, so they can lock out an offender. The Internet, on the other hand, cannot lock somebody from sending emails, despite valiant efforts by the spam cops, and LinkedIn seem quite vigilant to this danger.
I am not sure if this works as well in Facebook. In LinkedIn, business people work to a defined taxonomy that is well accepted. In Facebook it is way more free-form and that is probably a lot more fun. But if Web 3.0, aka the Semantic Web, is "the combination of mass collaboration and structured databases" (my definition) then I may have just seen the early signs of Web 3.0 in action. And it helped me to Get The Job Done.
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Terrific summary of your experience. I have the same experience using LinkedIn with success on problem solving. Thanks to everyone who has contributed their ideas and answers.
Posted by: Paul Tran | May 21, 2008 12:32 PM
I had the same experience when asking for recommendations for books on Business Strategy and on Management Consultancy - very good and relevant answers! See: http://jeroendemiranda.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/10-favorite-books-on-business-strategy/
b.t.w. it is possible to state a question without LinkedIn InMailing the question to your connections; LinkedIn explicitly asks you whether to do this.
Posted by: Jeroen de Miranda | May 21, 2008 1:33 PM
Bernard, I could not agree with you more about LinkedIn. I use it, have my "100% profile", nice network developed which helps me stay peripherally connected with colleagues who switch companies or move, and use "Questions" occasionally with good response. But, unlike other networks, there is really no peer-to-peer collaboration. If people in my network want my advice, they call or email me.
At a recent client meeting, I asked a group of ten professionals if they were on LinkedIn. 90% said "Yes." Then, I asked if they ever use it for anything of benefit in their business. All answered, "No." I was not surprised as I was trying to demonstrate a point that if you build a peer network, but do not develop features to keep people engaged, what is the point of having an online peer network? Features that facilitate communication and collaboration are key. I look at LinkedIn as one of those sites that has so much untapped potential...great user interface and simple design, but no life to it.
Thanks again. Jeremy
Posted by: Jeremy Lundberg - DLC-Solutions.com | May 21, 2008 1:37 PM
Our upcoming launch of VendorCity tackles this problem head-on. LinkedIn is good for a lot of things and asking a question of your network is useful, but what happens if you have a small network and/or you don't want to see a regular list of people posting and asking for this information?
The solution is VendorCity where you have access to a list of trusted vendors entered by your colleagues and business partners (and other businesses) in your area. We are launching in Boston, MA and New Hampshire in June and will expand to the other major markets around the country in Q4 2008 and 2009.
Posted by: JC Cameron | May 21, 2008 1:38 PM
I completely agree with the usefulness of the search features in LinkedIn but I don't really understand the comparison with Google Search. LinkedIn searches through a single source of content that they don't make fully available to 3rd parties, while Google searches the entire web and has to deal with the noise.
So rather than LinkedIn's search capability per se, it is their content and the way it's indexed that makes it a valuable tool. This is the reason why they have been so conservative making an API available as this is where the value of their business resides.
Posted by: pierreloic | May 21, 2008 3:30 PM
An interesting article. LinkedIn is a whole collection of online resumes, which as its use if you are hiring, looking to be hired or trying to get in touch with people from your past. But my big frustration with it is that it doesn't do much to put together buyers and sellers - that is, after all, what we are in business for. To that end, its business usefulness I would question. I'd say that rather than a business focused social network, it is a social network for people in business.
We have already launched a true business networking site, like JC is planning to, but for the UK market. WeCanDo.BIZ encourages members to create a web business card rather than resume, and other people can locate them based on what their companies does. We also have a Biz Need feature which is like a Twitter Tweet, but describes a member's most urgent business need. We then circulate that to their contacts and anyone else on our system with matching keywords. It enables instant answers rather than even having to wait 24 hours.
Anyone here is welcome to sign up and try it. I'd be interested on how you feel we compare with LinkedIn.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Posted by: Ian Hendry | May 22, 2008 12:06 AM
LinkedIn is most definitely NOT a collection of resumes. It is a business networking site. A natural by-product of that is that recruiters such as myself will network with people on LinkedIn to generate referrals for openings.
Also, when you post a question, LinkedIn does not send an email to all of your contacts...only those that you choose to send it to.
However, what they do is include your question in updates on people's home page. So if someone in your network logs on, they'll see a note that you posted a question and then if they want to review it, they can click over to the full question.
Posted by: pam claughton | May 22, 2008 8:38 AM
This may or may not be a good place to answer questions, but the title of this piece is misleading as is the comparison with Google. This isn't comparing a search in LinkedIn to a search in Google, the piece explicitly states that he didn't want to search linked in.
As a service LinkedIn questions competes with Yahoo Answers and general answering services of that ilk. I like RWW, but this piece seems to me like a forced comparison.
Posted by: felix | May 22, 2008 8:49 AM
Thanks to all who pointed out that I probably did not spam people inadvertently. The Question appearing in the LinkedIn Home page updates is cool. That is less interupt-driven than email.
Posted by: bernard lunn | May 22, 2008 8:49 AM
The only reason you're seeing 361% traffic growth is because 250,000 jobs were lost in the U.S. My guess is that as the economy worsens, LinkedIn traffic will continue to increase. Look at an Alexa graph comparing LinkedIn to Career Builder. You'll see what I mean. The 'billion dollar question' is... how do unemployed job seekers translate into revenues?
May I suggest two other networks for people NOT looking for jobs... German based Xing (www.xing)and U.S. based Fast Pitch! (www.fastpitchnetworking.com) - both of which offer a more robust platform for networking and promoting a business.
Posted by: Joy W. | May 22, 2008 1:28 PM
# 8. Not really that forced. I was reporting an actual use case. I tried Google, did not get a good result, then tried LinkedIn. Sure I could have tried Yahoo Answers, but the point is that, in a business context, LinkedIn already has my attention so its easy to do and given the biz context reasonable to make the assumption that it might work.
Posted by: bernard lunn | May 22, 2008 5:39 PM
"Web 3.0, aka the Semantic Web, is "the combination of mass collaboration and structured databases" (my definition)"
- that's awesome, most physically meaningful definition I've heard for what the next big thing on the web will look like.
Posted by: KP | May 27, 2008 1:55 PM