Some thoughts on online networks

It's been a busy week so I'm finally sitting down to write a post today. Yesterday I had breakfast with a friend and we started talking about Linkedin and how great it is in some ways (staying in touch, finding leads, jobs, contractors etc) but how limited it still is (no visual interface for seeing networks, no API, no tagging of contacts, no ability to have "degrees of knowing people (i.e. close friend, acquaintance, lead etc.). He then emailed me this post from Readwrite that gives a good summary of Linkedin plus a comparison to Facebook. Personally, I don't think facebook will rival linkedin - it's much more of a self-expression website than a professional site.

My theory would be that most users over time will setup their professional profile (see mine here)on linkedin.

Related to networking and tagging, here's another interesting post about how we're members of multiple interest-based networks at any point in time and what impact that could have on Marketing and positioning. Pretty good forward thinking going on there. I think many people will have one predominant area of interest (e.g. NASCAR) at any one point in their life and identify themselves strongly enough to associate themselves with that interest through community affiliation/sites/products.

Modern-day networking with Linkedin and Xing

Great post on Linkedin by Guy Kawasaki yesterday - absolute must read for anyone interested in modern networking. Linkedin is definitely a great tool and has really reached critical size here in the US over the last 12 months. As a European I also use Xing and I wish that at some point either one of them bought the other. They are essentially doing the same thing and a lot of folks are on both networks - why not join forces and become one awesome networking powerhouse - that could ultimately be worth more than Facebook b/c it enables business people to meet and work together.