LinkedIn users are, I suspect not only more professional, but that little bit older. Young people cannot intuit or empathise with our needs because if you’re older you have experienced being young: the reverse is not true. It’s not that grown-ups don’t want to make connections with like-minded people, or that they eschew the internet as a way of making those connections. The key difference is that ego is not their prime unit of social currency. Knowledge, experience and information are.

A couple of weeks ago I found myself waiting for a meeting to get going with a dozen or so high level digital professionals in London, youngest aged 28. As the talk turned, inevitably, to social networks, each and every one admitted that they couldn’t be bothered with Facebook, they didn’t know where people found the time. There was a unanimous thumbs-down to the superficiality of it. Despite my own views,I was genuinely surprised.

Perhaps what my professional peers and generational buddies need is something that lets us dig deeper with people we know and trust. Anyone up for creating Headbook, Heartbook…or even Soulbook?

LinkedIn has a lot more to think about thank competing with LinkedIn. I work for an emerging start-up called Salesconx (http://www.salesconx.com), which is a bit of a mashup between LinkedIn’s professional networking and eBay’s online marketplace model. And while we’ve never claimed to be a competitor of LinkedIn, I do think that there is a bit of overlap among our target demos.

I’ll be interested to see what comes of their decision to open up, so to speak.

Most of the LinkedIn criticism comes from Internet/tech pundits that really get the society changing aspects of the technology, but do not not the go-to-market aspects. LinkedIn is NOT just going after the early tech adopters, their core audience is mainstream; Internet users, but not all that tech savvy.

Consider these points:

0) Most people naturally segment business from truly personal life. The real question is what is your public persona. Therefore, positioning your social net offering, with the right image combined with privacy/security will be key to success for all players. (what is your business? what is your private life?) 1) Facebook is clearly moving TOO fast for the market, Look at the Beacon fiasco. (love the tech…hate the strategy) 2) Facebook, while wildly successful(today) is dangerously close to being “stuck in the middle” from a positioning standpoint. i.e., not cool enough for the kids, a little too cool for most business professionals. Which leaves them open to niche players. 4) LinkedIn is moving at the pace of the average business user They are still growing…and only with professionals. For me, only Internet folks like myself say “I’m on FaceBook” Every professional I meet says “Connect on LinkedIn” 5) I agree that LinkedIn is rather passive right now, but so is their audience…they need to get more social, but only 20% ahead of their target audience. 6) acebook might ultimately make more $$$ on ads …but LinkedIn’s service is far “stickier,” and is not as susceptible to fashion (technological or social). 6) LinkedIn has a solid revenue portfolio propopostion that includes ads, subscriptions, third party fees (recruiting), etc.

All in all…it is good to see a company that is driven by solving problems for their customers first and technology possiblities second. If I were LinkedIn…I’d sit back…let FaceBook lead on the tech side, avoid it’s mistakes…and follow right behind scooping up a really valuable, inherently global segment of customers. Professionals making real $$$ and willing to pay actual cash for services.

LinkedIn has a bright future…but they do need to move faster technologically to keep the pace.

My 2 cents.

Joel York

While there is some crossover I, personally, like my professional networking site to be simply about that. I don’t need it to have a billion applications, I just need to be able to meet industry professionals.

a) If I indicate on my social networking site that I wish to travel from SFO->NYC for duration of month in economy class, then sites like Orbitz, Priceline, Cheaptickets etc should use this info and come up with the cheapest/short-duration quote for me, instead of me going to their websites individually.

b) Similarly, lets say I want to attend online traffic school in a particular county (and I enter my details on my social networking site profile page), and since the cost of this varies from $9 to $29, online traffic schools should come to my facebook account and bid for me, with the cheapest rates.

c) Insurance : For example, I have my profile on your social networking site, and I would like to buy auto insurance. Using my profile data and my actual details like car, driving history, car model, etc (that I can make available on your social networking site under profile), insurance companies should come up with the best quote and let me know. Instead of me going to tens of insurance companies websites and getting quotes, they should be able to come up with direct quote for me.

Thanks, Avinash

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