It took me nearly a year to feel comfortable enough about privacy, security and discretion to join LinkedIn late in 2006. Today, I’m glad I did for two reasons: 1-I link with any Hudson recruiter who solicits me so they can extend their talent reach by tapping my professional network. 2-Once every 3-4 weeks, a former colleague or friend from the past finds me and we happily reconnect. Otherwise, I have little time to explore or leverage it.
Last month, I was solicited by a member of Naymz, billed as the professional network for reputation management. Recruiters seem to be diggin’ it. Hmmm.
Since the invitation came from a trusted and respected former colleague, I decided to join. However, just a few weeks later, Naymz is now seeking to sign me up for an “enhanced” membership at $9.99 a month or “premium” status for even more money. Yeah, right. So I’ve started wondering about all these professional networking sites, and then spotted these views about Spoke.com:
http://phil.yanov.com/2007/01/spokecom-is-evil.htm
http://collateraldamage.wordpress.com/category/spokecom/
Yikes! Please, weed ‘em out and give me one trusted network. I don’t have time for all these chump challengers.
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Rick Gray
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The interesting thing is that after you joined Naymz, they certainly raised your personal brand on Google. When I Google Rick Gray Hudson, your Naymz profile is the second result on the first page. It looks like they’ve got their SEO down to a science.
Comment by Kris Rzepkowski — July 25, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
My experience with Namyz has not been positive, I have had a requests come from “friends” to endorse their reputation and most of the time they are people I do not know well enough to vouch for their honesty, integrity, etc. I just know them well enough to say they work in a specific function at a specific company and we were in meetings together.
When someone I do know fairly well sent a similar request, I emailed her to talk about it and it turns out that Namyz decided who to send these invitations to and basically spammed her friends on its own with these reputation requests. I cancelled my account as best I could right after that.
Personally, I’d stick with Linkedin, and if you’re into it one of the major social networks and leave it at that. If you’re in those two, people can find you without going into the niche players.
Comment by Cleo — July 28, 2008 @ 8:37 am
There are more and more of these networking sites on the market now. It can make it pretty tricky to “control” your personal online brand.
Interesting to see Xing doing very well on user figures. As much as LinkedIn is streets ahead will that always be the case? I suspect a lot depends on what they do with the recent cash injection.
My approach? I use LinkedIn for professional networking, but I do also have profiles on sites like xing. Instead of trying to keep multiple profiles up to date, or maintain 3 or 4 different networks I make it clear on all profiles that I use LI as my networking tool and invite anyone who finds my name thru Google etc that to click the link to LI and connect with me there.
I wonder if we’ll end up seeing an application that allows users to access all networks/ inboxes etc through one source. That’d be something I’d definitely use. Not convinced the LIs and Xings of this world would be too keen mind you!
Comment by Alex S — July 29, 2008 @ 2:26 am