LinkedIn Clamps Down On Super-Connected Users
LinkedIn has imposed new restrictions on the number of connections any one person can have, say members of the LinkedIn open networkers, a controversial group that accepts almost all LinkedIn connection requests. The group appears to be walking an increasingly fine line with the social network.
Regular users of LinkedIn who use the free version of the service can search and access a portion of social network's 34 million members based on their connection count. There are their immediate connections, second degree contacts (friends of friends), and third degree contacts, people whom you can get introduced (and connect with) by the aid of being introduced by a mutual connection. These three categories in total will determine how much of the LinkedIn network the users can search for (without paying LinkedIn for wide access).
Before the article about LIONs on CIO.com, Burda says that number was 27 million for him. As he added connections in the following weeks, he said his network size actually shrunk to 12 million.
Bill Howell, senior vice president and CIO of Accellent (a medical components company), is a LION and has also seen the restriction leveled on to him. He says that with the down economy, the type of restriction seems especially draconian.
"This is very regrettable," he wrote CIO in an e-mail. "Just last Sunday I did a presentation to unemployed workers on the benefits of using LinkedIn and I advised all of them to connect to me and I would help them get jobs. Now none of them can connect to me. Gee, now isn't that an interesting message."
The decision to punish LinkedIn open networkers won't be without consequence as the group and the service have a unique relationship. In the recent feature about the group, Jason Alba, president of JibberJobber.com and author of the book I'm on LinkedIn — Now What?, noted that while their network philosophy runs counter to that of LinkedIn, the LIONs have some upsides for the service as well.
"I haven't seen LinkedIn take a stand, or a strong stand, on this," Alba said at the time. "Many of the open networkers are actually helping LinkedIn grow, since they are such passionate evangelists. I'm guessing this is a topic that LinkedIn is just going to be silent on, for now."
But LinkedIn has taken quiet steps to temper their influence on the service in the past. On the profile pages of LinkedIn, the service will only list a person's connection size as "500+" to discourage the practice of connection counting. They have levied a limit on how many invitations someone can send to connect (3,000).
The selling of premium accounts does represent a way in which LinkedIn has diversified its business away from merely advertising, which its competitors such as Facebook have relied heavily on to build a business.
