LinkedIn?

[redbird]

An old acquaintance, who I haven't seen in a while, has sent me an invite to a social networking site called LinkedIn. As far as I can tell, it's business-oriented, rather than, say, a dating service. (I do not need a dating service.)

Have any of you used it? Do you find it useful?

Comments

[nwhyte]

I have signed into it, and found it no use at all.

On the other hand I find Plaxo, which is more of an address book management system, really handy.

[firecat]

I joined at the invitation of a friend who programs/builds web sites, and he seemed pretty enthusiastic about it, but I don't know if he got any work from it. (He has a lot more work than he used to, so it might have helped.) I haven't found it useful myself, but I also haven't made any efforts to find work through it.

As the one who sent the invitation,

[(Anonymous)]

I would like to add that while LinkedIn is indeed primarily business related, there is nothing that prevents it from being used for other purposes. I have not been on it for long enough to judge whether it is useful, but I expect it would become more useful as the number of people who join it increases.

One of the very pleasant surprises was a now find I have connections to very high up people in Massachusetts General Hospital, which is one of the better research hospitals in my local geography. I don't know whether such connections would be of any use if I had an obscure illness and could not get a good response from the doctors I contacted, but it seems possible.