What’s LinkedIn’s Latest Stealth Change All About?

Recently, LinkedIn made another change to their platform.

I would’ve said “announced” but like most things done by LinkedIn, it wasn’t done in the most transparent manner possible.

The lack of full disclosure by LinkedIn whenever they do something on their platform has been a long running beef of mine.

Those of you, whom like me, have been with them from almost the very beginning, have grown accustomed to logging in to find something missing or changed materially.

I’d hoped that Microsoft‘s acquisition of them would’ve changed this.

But, alas, that’s not to be. We’ll probably have to wait for Microsoft to let go more of the old management team.

Now, let’s talk about the actual change itself! LinkedIn members can now send out only one hundred connection requests per week.

Previously, there was some mysterious algorithm that would set a cap.

No longer, it’s now one hundred or you’re in trouble.

Now, I’ve never sent out more than one hundred connection requests in a week even during my busiest times.

The ostensible idea here is to cut down on spammers which are a recurring problem on LinkedIn.

I’ll venture to say that most legitimate users of LinkedIn have no problem with this change.

It’s logical and makes sense.

What I do have a problem with is how it’s been communicated.

Sure, LinkedIn will probably say that in some wordy corporate release that’s been posted somewhere where none of us look, their users have been informed.

But, guys, get real! If you keep sending me these emails telling me about my free trial offer (Talk about spam!) then why can’t you send me notifications about these changes?

Is it that difficult? Hell, you’ve already got my email address!    

And, while we’re talking about spam…

Is this the best you can do this late in the ballgame?

Look, LinkedIn is the only game in town in this space.

Several have tried and failed.

The barriers to entry are too great now.

Would anyone really want to go out and recreate their LinkedIn communities?

(I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t remember where I met half the people in my LinkedIn connections.)

OK, enough of my griping!

Maybe LinkedIn will listen to me one of these days!

That’s it for now!

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