LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network
Y'all know that I worked for Google. On this topic, I can only say good things about the place. When it comes to privacy and PII, Google holds itself to an extremely high standard. Many of these "social" innovations that are popping up on the market place were rejected out-of-hand at Google because it holds itself to an extremely high ethical standard regarding user data, as it actually respects them.<p>I was shocked, for example, when I learned that a certain social network gives universal profile access to employees as a perk. That would not happen at Google. If you looked at your high-school ex-girlfriend's email, you'd be fired immediately (and deserve it).<p>Social <i>is</i> creepy, because it's all about being defined by other people, which is ridiculous and horrible. What, so do I suck at Programming Languages because I haven't trolled my 25 closest acquaintances for endorsements? Am I really going to become more credible in Machine Learning if I get 15 strangers to "endorse" me?<p>The major conflict in "Social" is what I call "Document vs. Improve" (or: Exploit vs. Explore). A social app can expand the web of social connections and make it more efficient, but (a) that's really hard, and (b) there isn't a lot of short-term money in it. Or it can document social relationships that already exist, and make a shit-ton of money off the data. That's easy, but it doesn't actually make anyone's life better. Guess which one the mainstream social players favor?<p>What I find depressing about LinkedIn is how much it has play-by-play replicated the old, broken way of doing things. Resumes. Titles and dates of employment. Recommendations. Recruiter spam. It feels like the Wayback Machine took us to 1995.