Slashdot Mirror
LinkedIn (Temporarily) Backs Down After Uproar At Contact Export Removal
Mark Wilson writes: LinkedIn caused a storm a couple of days ago when it removed the option to instantly download contacts. Many users of the professional social network were more than a little irked to discover that while contact exporting was still available, a wait of up to three days had been put in place. Unsurprisingly, users revolted, having been particularly upset by the fact the change was implemented with no warning or announcement. But the company has managed to turn things around by quickly backtracking on its decision after listening to a stream of complaints on Twitter.
It's surprising because Google came to the opposite conclusion. A lock-in keeps current users, but it also slows down the arrival of new users, so it's a short-term vs long-term tradeoff.
Signing up, they want your contact information from your email client. WTF! And people give it to them!!
And what sucks is that email addresses that I reserve for family and friends is now on LinkIN's site. I once created an account with my professional email and they knew exactly what my other email accounts were.
And then there is the spam. And the folks who look at your profile and yet are able to hide their identities. And the recruiters who have a great opportunity and after sending them a resume, the jobs are "closed".
LinkedIN is one big waste of time and it's worse than facebook in terms of privacy loss.
While they advertised their API removal, it was a giant mess as well. They removed almost all the functionality and rather than just remove the API functions from the admin console, they left them still there and made developers go manually switch off the ones they weren't allowed to use themselves. If anything was left on, your calls just wouldn't work.
removal of the regular download option had been "part of our ongoing efforts to combat the inappropriate export of member data by third parties." As a result of the vocal outpouring of disapproval, instant CSV exporting is back...
I have to wonder who outpoured disapproval? It doesn't seem like something most users would care about.
On the other hand, headhunters who use LinkedIn as a site for harvesting resumes would be angry. But isn't that the whole point of LinkedIn? To give recruiters your contact info so they can spam you?
It wouldn't surprise me if this was just a publicity stunt.
Linked in is still relevant?
I have yet to meet ANYONE that has found linked in to be useful in any way. 99% of the "employers" are headhunters that are doing shotgun requests.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
LinkedIn was ever relevant?
Yes. Aside from Facebook and maybe Twitter it's probably the most relevant social networking site out there right now and it is top of the heap for business networking. I have no relationship with LinkedIn aside from being a periodic user but it is demonstrably pretty useful and very relevant in business networking.
but I'd never consider using them to find people to hire
Why not? I have and it works pretty well. I've found people I needed to talk to for technical problems, found job opportunities, found people to hire and had others find me for those same purposes. It's a great tool for a job seeker. It helps me get warm introductions for sales leads (I run a small company), find people I need to talk to, find experts in particular topics, find suppliers for products, etc. It's not the only way to do these things but its pretty helpful if you do it right. I'm not saying you should use it but I think just blanket dismissal of it is kind of silly. I don't have a Facebook account myself but I get why people use it and why they find it valuable.