When Facebook arrived, I thought: well this one surely leaves sites likes Linkedin behind. My friendlist at facebook grew with the speed of light – contrasted to my connections at Linkedin, which increased significantly slower. A shame for Linkedin, I thought, they had it all, were there four years ahead in time, but somehow blew it. They didn’t hit it right, they didn’t find the secret magic-button that Facebook somehow stumbled upon. And now they’ve been run over, I thought.
But Linkedin was not left behind. Partly because they catched up with Facebook functionality – but primarily I think because Facebook taught a lot of people what social networks are about. And apparently triggered their taste for the phenomenon: lets have some more of those! During the past half year, my Linkedin network has grown significantly, and with great pace. My Linkedin-network has flourished in the shadow of Facebook.
Linkedin is taking off. It was one of just 3 new sites added to the About.com Top 10 Employment site list…linkedin is still the only social network on the list though…..the newest 3-
http://www.linkedin.com (professional networking)
http://www.indeed.com (aggregated listings)
http://www.realmatch.com (matches you to the perfect job)
Complete top 10 job site list here:
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/joblistings/tp/jobbanks.htm
You’re right Jon
Maybe another reason for LinkedIn’s growth is that after tasting the difference in quality of contacts between the networks, people realized that they could appreciate LinkedIn more than ever. The time I spend on LinkedIn is usually well invested.
Apparently, LinkedIn also knows how to make money:
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12304861
// Lars
Thanks for your comments, guys – this is almost realtime chat!
@ Andreas: You might be right, that linkedin contacts has more quality – on the other hand I don’t really communicate a lot with my linkedin network – they’re more like a passive crowd (as opposed to facebook)
@ James and Lars: interesting!