I got this piece of LinkedIn Spam:
Hello ,
I’d like to connect to you to on my professional network on LinkedIn. I am a LinkedIn LION with over 4,500+ connections currently. I would be happy to connect so that we can mutually expand our network of potential contacts. Unfortunately LinkedIn has restricted the number of invitations I am able to send, so I am pushed to expand this way. My profile is at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/Mr. X If you are unable to open the above link just go to people search and put Mr. X. Please feel free to send an invitation, I will always accept. Send an invitation to: Mr. X@gmail.com If you are not an open networker, I do apologize for this inconvenience. If we are already connected, then ignore this mail. All the best, Mr. X
Don’t these deeply personal invitations to connect just warm your heart? Doesn’t it make you feel good about the power of social networking? Don’t you feel that your connection with this individual really means something (Particularly, if you are already connected and are receiving this email).
When will people realize, social networking is about relationships, not quantity? Yes, many of the relationships will be distant relationships, but are we just accumulating mailing lists (I think a lot of these people are and just feeding their spam machines)?
I like LinkedIn, it’s a valuable tool. The value of the tool declines, when idiots like this start intruding on my time.
Dave,
I just got “followed” on twitter by Darren Simpson, @netcapability. I always check into people who follow me, to see if it makes sense for me to follow them back.
In this case, Mr. Simpson “follows” 13,880 people, and is “followed by” 12,686 other accounts.
Now the punchline: he has written precisely one tweet.
If there was ever a great example of an out of control game, where the chase for metrics overwhelmed what the metrics were intended to show, this has to be it.
Absurd. Ridiculous. Meaning nothing.
Too bad, because some of us really do find twitter and LinkedIn very useful.
Must have been a really insightful tweet to generate that amount of interest 😉 Iboth my post and your example demonstrate the dark side of social media. Just as it is easy to reach out and communicate with people, it is just as easy to reach out in ways that are intrusive or offensive. Likewise, as Mr. Simpson demonstrates, it is easy to generate great statistics and large followerships. The real measure can’t be how many are following you, but how many listen and act on what you say. Charlie, you are a perfect example of this–people pay attention to your point of view and value it.