The Quagmire of LinkedIn
The original LinkedIn business model invented by Reid Hoffman and others has, in fact, been hijacked by “open networkers”: consultants, small business leaders, savvy salespeople and recruiters.
There is a need for the original LinkedIn business model: an online mapping of our trusted known relationships with the opportunity to build on them online and off.
But obviously there is also a great need for a centralized, dynamic, self-populated database on the internet at a relatively low cost. Maybe this secondary need is more valuable, offering the greatest value to more people.
Without the open networkers embracing LinkedIn…would LinkedIn have any real market leadership over the other business social networks?
I anticipate that LinkedIn will create a second tier offering, a secondary site or other differentiator to let both networking models co-exist. If they kill the open networker model, they will be stiffling a huge online success story. There are tough decisions to be made at LinkedIn on how and where to guide the product. Will it become a “Lotus 1-2-3 or altavista” or will it become an “Ebay”-like success story.
It’s confusing, many of the standard features they have seem to encourage the open networker model.
Interestingly, I’d like to see how much revenue is being generated by the open networkers vs the intended original business model users.
Dave Boller
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