LinkedIn To Take the Next Step to Making Groups Useful
by
on August 27, 2008,
It looks like the business social network LinkedIn has chosen a step-by-step approach to developing LinkedIn Groups. When the functionality was launched initially it only had the very basic features enabling users to create groups and invite people to join. Those users joining groups were able to show what groups they belonged to on their profiles to get some extra visibility to the groups. So the groups were intended mostly to demonstrate some communities you belong to for professional reasons.
The major complaint was that the directory of groups did not even have any search functionality so the only way to discover groups was to either be invited to join them or to see groups on profiles of other people. LinkedIn only released the searchable groups directory in July. While this was a welcome addition since it allowed users to actually find groups they might be willing to join, it still did not improve the groups as tools for communication because after joining a group you were left without any opportunities to publicly communicate with other group members. The only communication method available was by sending private emails to other members - and that has quickly become one of the most abused features. After all, what’s the point of trying to get introduced to a person you need or paying to be able to send such emails when you can contact all the members of groups you belong to easily and for free.
But the searchable directory did not really make groups much more useful and at least some sort of discussion forums was an obvious next step and LinkedIn is finally ready to make it this Friday. This new feature (along with a few other minor upgrades) has not been announced on the company’s blog and was only distributed to owners of groups on LinkedIn by email (I got mine as an owner of the Profy group which everyone is welcome to join, obviously).
The functionality to be added includes forum discussions (that can be disabled by group administrators), daily or weekly digest emails of discussions to all group members, searchable lists of group members, and a group homepage to serve as a private place for group members.
On the launch date the digest emails will be turned on for all the LinkedIn users belonging to some groups but they will be prompted to choose their own settings to decide exactly how much information they want to be exposed to. These default settings will probably cause some complaints from users that have chosen to join groups that will become a place for heated disputes but hopefully the majority of users will not mind configuring their own settings once. But since the group messaging is already abused by savvy marketers for sales and promotion with some users already complaining, this problem definitely needs to be addressed and adding more emails to users’ inboxes is probably not the correct approach.
We’ll have to wait until Friday to see exactly how this new functionality will operate but I don’t really expect the groups on LinkedIn will be able to become a place for animated discussions - after all, there are tons of them in the Questions section and I don’t think people will be all that willing to discuss some general things in groups - the only topics discussed will probably be those related to the group’s basis, like profession of the group’s members or company they all are connected with.
But LinkedIn is known as a tool for business communications, not a place to spend hours in endless discussions so I believe the discussions functionality is more of a retention tool that group owners could use to engage members in some sort of real communications. And also discussion forums is one of the obvious features we expect to see in groups on almost any social network so chances are the enhancement is simply introduced not to leave users without something obvious - even if not particularly needed.
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Svetlana Gladkova
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
The question here is, given LinkedIn’s willingness to take networks off line without notice and it’s adverse stance toward marketers and sales people, what will be the incentive for group managers to run large and meaningful groups. It takes a lot of time and effort to create content and manage groups. Does LinkedIn really think that group managers will do this it out of the goodness of their heart? After all LinkedIn is for business people and their time is precious.
Svetlana, you made some excellent points and LinkedIn has been used primarily as a business communications forum. There are two elements that LinkedIn has had to contend with which is people wanting to communicate within groups and the need for more collaborating tools. A good amount of complaints have occurred because many people on LinkedIn have wanted a forum in which to better collaborate with people. The CEO of LinkedIn Dan Nye stated back in 2007 that LinkedIn would make a greater effort to improve the usefulness of “Groups” because so many people requested it.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/linkedins-dan-nye-responds-to-your-questions/
There are a number of new startups and business forums on the Internet that have better collaborative tools than LinkedIn. Competing organizations such as Viadeo and Talkbiznow have received a lot of attention and funding because of the potential for those services. In order for LinkedIn to continue growing and to continue expanding beyond its U.S. borders, it will need to add more functionality to its service. I just think that the new offerings of services to “Groups” is just another iteration of improvements for LinkedIn.
@David: Very true, LinkedIn definitely has to address some issues about their approach to groups - they should help group owners instead of making the service less useful (and sometimes painful) to them. After all, these are busy people helping LinkedIn engage users.
@Gerald: Very valid thoughts here, competitors often provide better level of services. Unfortunately for those competitors, LinkedIn holds a strong position as the primary social network for business and their stable position and profitability they already have may cause some sort of stagnation in development. After all, why try to improve when you are already fine?
Svetlana,
Just because you are already successful doesn’t mean that you are necessarily the best solution. You may have been the only real solution at the time. Look at Altavista… they were great at one point, but Google came along and destroyed them. Is Google always going to be the best search engine if they stop trying to improve their current technology? Nope.
You are right that LinkedIn isn’t a place where you spend a lot of time discussing things. It does have some good uses, but I don’t think it is the be all end all of business networking
Brian
http://www.konnects.com
@Brian: I have never meant to say that a successful product is necessarily the best one in the industry. I am actually a firm believer that usually the most successful product is the most hyped one or the one with the best marketing/PR team with very rare exceptions. But leadership can be difficult to handle because when you are on top you have no motivation to grow and improve further until you notice competition catching up.
That’s unless you realize that if you don’t improve, competition will catch up much faster than you hope. This is probably the explanation of Google’s politics: they have been the ones to compete first and they know from experience that any market leader can be replaced.
Anyway I’m glad I am not the only one thinking LinkedIn will not become a place with animated discussions. Moreover, I have a feeling that other things like connecting to people and finding their business background is much more important and useful for anyone on LinkedIn while we already have tons of places for discussions everywhere.
I run 3 groups on Linkedin and I’m using the messaging functionality in lieu of emailing everyone. Definitely saves time and is more convenient.
This additional, but still basic functionality was a long time coming. It should help Linkedin drive more usership. I’ve also recently started a group on Ning. There’s a lot of business niches out there. If Linkedin doesn’t continue to innovate and add more group functionality, white labels such as Ning might start stealing some of Linkedin’s lunch.
Mark Brooks, 212-444-1636, http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com
@Mark: Yes, for group owners messaging functionality is obviously a huge benefit and the recent enhancements of functionality are definitely more than welcome. I am not quite sure if it will bring more users to the social network in general but it will surely result in more visits from the current users (I mean, those that belong to some groups). And it’s very true, Ning’s feature set is just about perfect for handling various groups but the major advantage of LinkedIn is that everyone is already registered which makes life simpler for those trying to invite interested people to their groups.
I have joined numerous groups and tried to participate in some discussion. To date, I have not yet received any value for the time I put it. Any suggestions?
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidhughes1
David, I think the simple suggestion is to either stop this activity and choose something that will show value for the time or focus on other groups that may be more efficient for you instead.