Archive for January 24th, 2009



LinkedIn LION: Connection Counting Controversy Brews

January 24th, 2009 by Erin Posted in Business, LinkedIn | 1 Comment »

There’s trouble in paradise.

The blogosphere is buzzing about LinkedIn’s move to clamp down on a controversial association called the LinkedIn open networkers (LIONs). This is a group of LinkedIn members who add thousands of contacts – known on the site as “connections” – even if they are total strangers.

In an effort to restrict some of their activity, LinkedIn recently sent some messages to LIONs saying they had exceeded a newly imposed connection limit of 30,000. As it stands, some LION members say they have pending “invitations to connect” that they can’t accept as a result of the restriction.

CIO.com has been on top of this story, covering it from the beginning. Their recent profile of LinkedIn’s “super connected” revealed a double-edged sword. While LIONs are described as helping strangers find new business opportunities through LinkedIn, they are also referred to as “name collectors” who are trying to build connection lists in order to spam other members.

On any given day, regular free users of LinkedIn can search and access a portion of social network’s 34 million members based on their connection count. There are immediate connections, second degree contacts (friends of friends), and third degree contacts, which are connections made by introduction through a mutual connection. But what many of these users don’t know is that LinkedIn keeps a close tally on all free connections. Rack up so many and your connection size will be listed as “500+” as a way to discourage the practice of connection counting.

LION member and financial planner, Steven Burda openly admits he is a connection counter.  He claims he has 40,000 of them. However, the recommendations on Burda’s profile are proof that he’s not spamming, but actually helping others build business ties.

Depending on which way you look at it, the LIONs are doing something right - or terribly, terribly wrong.

Seems to me these LIONs are trying to buck the system. Rather than buy a premium membership – they are generating contacts and potential business opportunities all for FREE.

CIO reports that if LinkedIn had any legal footing in this matter the LIONs would have been kicked off the site a long time ago. But as threatening as they are to their bottom line, LinkedIn knows that the LIONs are here to stay.

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