LinkedIn vs Xing – part 2.

As i promised, this is the second part of the LinkedIn vs. Xing line. A few days ago I wrote my thoughts on Xing that has attracted a lot of comments – for which I am really thankful. Now, it’s LinkedIn’s turn.

I registered on LinkedIn last December, but was not really using it until late February. Then I had started my jobhunting project, and jumped into it fully with the intention and expectation that it will help me.

One of the things that I really like is the fact that you can not just connect to anyone, because if you got refused there are consequences – I never tried what those are, but I think it’s something like the system will demand some data to prove that you know the person.

The other is the Questions and Answers section. That was the way I met someone who really helped me a lot since then. It is not a Forum like on Xing, you put up a Question and everyone has a chance to write ONE Answer. One and not more. Later, he can add clarification to his answer, as the person placing the question can add a clarification to his question too, but there is no chance to start a long flame war.

There is also a rating system, each answer can be rated as a good answer and one as the best answer, with the best answer giving an “expertise” in the field of the Question, but I don’t really pay heed to the expertise bit, only over 20 best answers. And even then I would check out the answer that was deemed the best. (For example, I have expertise in Job Search , Government Policy and Using LinkedIn with 1 best answer in each Category. Now, if you want to know about Government Policy, don’t come to me or you will be disappointed )

Another thing I really like is the Recommendations bit, even if we all know that not all of them are valid. But I trust them 80% – and yes, if you ask me to recommend you, I will answer honestly if I would rather not. Some people does not want to seem rude, and will give a vague recommendation, I will take the risk and will answer with a polite no.

What I absolutely don’t like on LinkedIn is the way groups are handled. There is simply no way to see what groups are there, all you can do is go over the profiles and if you see a group that seems relevant you can check it out. But no Group Search function in LinkedIn.

Some people mentioned that people on LinkedIn are not too active. Given the number of Questions asked and Answered on any day, including the weekends and holidays, I think that’s not true. But one thing is sure,LinkedIn does not try to build a community, it just gives a chance to discover connections, find new people, provides a kind of directed forum to ask and answer questions, but sort of forces us to take the whole connection thing to the next level – e-mail, twitter, phone, whatever. It does not have an Events part, it does not give you an unlimited number of messages to shoot at strangers, but the core functionality is well implemented I think. Build a network, and discover what it gives you. That’s all.

I don’t want to decide if it’s a good or bad thing, but it clearly shows that LinkedIn is a tool for one thing and does not want to do too many things at once.

Once they have the API published and “complete”, I expect to see a lot of auxiliary services to pop up, group sites integrated with LinkedIn, debate forums integrated with LinkedIn, linked-in mapping mash-ups, and so on. That definitely has the advantage of letting the LinkedIn staff concentrate on the core functionality.

So what do you think?