UPDATE: As usual, Mashable comes to the rescue with the inside scoop on the Twitter/LinkedIn connection. You have the option to have your entire Twitter feed posted there (I don't recommend that) or, as with the Facebook selective twitter status option, you can select which tweets make it and which don't. That's the better option by far IMO. Just us the hashtag #li or #in.
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The New York Times is reporting that Twitter and LinkedIn are joining forces. I can understand LI's incentive for adding tweets, but question whether it's really in their best interest to have tweets like "Time to watch Monk. It's the last season." or "I rode a Greyhound bus once when I was 18 and it taught me to never ride a bus again as long as I live." on what is an otherwise professionally-oriented social network. I mean, really, do we? In my view, this is an oil-water mix.
It's not that LinkedIn should be exempt from Twitter mania, other than that it has set itself up as a site for professionals that is strictly business.
The Times says, "The partnership with LinkedIn affirms Twitter’s role as a network for professional conversation." That would be fine if all we used Twitter for was professional conversation, but you know better than that.
Some questions for you...
1. Will this integration cause us to be more guarded in what we say on Twitter? Will we be less open to casual conversation?
2. Does this signal a shift in the way we view Twitter, seeing it even more as a tool for business-oriented conversations? Has Twitter grown up, so to speak?
Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s chief executive, said that he wants "LinkedIn to be the hub for all professional conversation," according to the Times article. That's fine, so long as he is willing to accept everything else that comes with it, including what I had for dinner!
What do you think? Is Twitter appropriate for a social network like LinkedIn?
With all the networks we are on personally and professionally I do see a need to make it easy to share across them and aggregate them in some way. As long as I can mark which tweets flow over to LinkedIn I think it's OK. Problem is, many won't and we will get more twitter chatter passed over to adding to the information overload we have.
Posted by: @MichaelJKillian | November 10, 2009 at 06:02 PM
Great post, Paul! From the Mashable article http://mashable.com/2009/11/09/twitter-linkedin-sync/ it looks like there will be an "opt-in" for selective updates which should help eliminate the "what I had for dinner" posts on LinkedIn. I hope that users are conscientious about what they're including on any web posts, but especially when posting cross-platform (Twitter - LinkedIn - Facebook - Blog - etc.) they need to think about the audience that the posts are reaching and write appropriately.
Posted by: Sharon Mostyn | November 10, 2009 at 06:34 PM
Too little, too late. Giving us a way to opt-over to Linkedin updates may actually help folks remember to update their Linkedin page (beyond when you change jobs, that is).
But will it actually help Linkedin? I don't think so.
Posted by: Lori Miller | November 10, 2009 at 06:48 PM