Link-in breaks the social contract

I find this extremely obnoxious. Link-in is sending marketing to it’s customers and using my name in the subject lines. Obviously they are doing this to increase the chance people will read, rather than just discard the junk mail. Social network hosts should be very careful about this kind of thing. I wonder what the hell their product management was thinking. Presumably this indicates that Link-in’s days are numbered.

From: LinkedIn Updates
Date: March 30, 2006 1:06:05 PM EST
To: ...
Subject: Find the people that you and Ben Hyde know in common

LinkedIn Updates
Dear ...

Thank you for using LinkedIn! Did you know that you may not be connected to people you know and trust? We would like to help you connect with your trusted contacts and get more value from LinkedIn.

It's easy to find people that you and your trusted connections like Ben Hyde both know. See someone you recognize? Just click on that person's name to view the profile. From there, click "Invite to connect" to send an invitation.

Check to see who is in Ben Hyde's network.

...

Of course the joke is on them. Any of my aquantances immediately hit the delete upon seeing my name!

3 thoughts on “Link-in breaks the social contract

  1. Yoav Shapira

    Mmm, completely agree with your point, except the last sentence. I’m fairly alert to spam and other junk mail, but a subject line like you quote would probably make me open the message. It’d be effective…

    (There’s also the point that I’d actually be curious to see who we know in common, but that’s something I expect a random distribution of LinkedIn users liking or not liking to see)

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