Comments on: Is LinkedIn Spamming Me?

By: Paul Sherman

Paul Sherman — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 21:39:57 +0000

Matthew, this was a good post. I am a LinkedIn user as well, and I remember thinking “now that’s a real uninformative subject line”…but of course I was too dull to do something as cool as blog it.

And while we’re on the subject of LI, what’s the deal w/ the “build your own LI web page?”

By: Matthew Oliphant

Matthew Oliphant — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 06:23:33 +0000

Thanks for taking the time to respond, Konstantin. :)

As I said, since I was expecting the email I thought to look for it in the junk folder. I saw Lea’s name and marked it as not junk. That was easy enough, but it wouldn’t have been if I wasn’t expecting it.

My guess is that since Lea used a new-to-me email address, coupled with the subject line, the junk filter took over.

The good part is that all recent contact/connection requests show up on the home page (if you are logged in). But I rarely visit the home page, instead arriving via a link to my profile. It might be nice to see another identifier, perhaps above the tabs, that makes me aware of new requests? Just a random thought.

Overall this is a small thing (though small things add up), and LinkedIn has made a lot of good changes to the site over the past couple of years. Now if I could just get some more hits when I search LinkedIn jobs for “blog” I would be happy. :)

By: Konstantin Guericke

Konstantin Guericke — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 05:59:58 +0000

When receiving an invitations, the sender should always have the name of the person who is sending it as the sender (unless we batch invitations, which we sometimes do to make sure our users don’t get too much email from us at once), so it should be clear that the invitation is from someone you know.

Let me know if you think you found a case where it’s not.

We definitely do A/B testing, so don’t be surprised if your LinkedIn looks differently than what others see :-)

By: James Archer

James Archer — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 02:11:32 +0000

Hey, what can I say. I like having friends! ;-)

By: Jay Zipursky

Jay Zipursky — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 22:36:59 +0000

Bizarre. The first time I tried this, I used the “Invite someone to your network” section (nested in the My Network group). So, I tried the Add Connection button like you did and I still got the “Join my network on LinkedIn” subject.

Are we victims of A/B testing? Is there something about your profiles that make Linkedin think “Interesting Business Tool” is a better subject?

This feels like an episode of CSI.

OK, a low-budget and really boring episode.

OK, OK, it’s not CSI.

By: Lea

Lea — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 20:36:17 +0000

I assure you I kept all the default settings and merely added Matthew’s name and e-mail on the fields above the default e-mail greetings. I am lazy that way. :-)

By: Jay Zipursky

Jay Zipursky — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 19:16:10 +0000

I’d be outraged too if Linkedin did that to me. However, I’ve received enough Linkedin email that it just didn’t seem right. In general, I find Linkedin to be one of the better web apps/services I’ve used. I find that there are very few surprises.

By: Matthew Oliphant

Matthew Oliphant — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 17:16:35 +0000

Could be, I will have to ask her. If she did edit it, then my apa-logies to LinkedIn and curse you Lea! ;)

Being a user of LinkedIn, rather than a designer or usabilityer, definitely coloured my thoughts as I wrote this post.

By: Jay Zipursky

Jay Zipursky — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 17:00:40 +0000

I read this and thought, “No way.” So, I invited myself to my network and note that the email subject is editable. The default subject is: Join my network on LinkedIn. Not only that, but the sender is my own email address.

So, what happened? Did Lea modify the defaults? Did she have a different email address configured in Linkedin than you or your spam filters expected?

Now, excuse me while I decline my invitation (or maybe I should pad my connections… :) ).