Which is more spammy — #LinkedIn or #Facebook?

At one time, it would have been easy to say Facebook.

But, starting with the crack cocaine of LinkedIn's "endorsements," especially when we're asked to endorse people who not only aren't in our network but are more than one step removed from people who ARE in our network, or so it seems when I'm asked to endorse people I'm  not even close to knowing, LinkedIn's closing the gap fast.

The clearly made-up nature of many of these skills, such as "storytelling" (what is that for, career politicians) only increases the height of my skeptical antennae.

Then there's this.

Not only is LinkedIn about as spammy as Facebook, it's apparently taking lessons on TOU-shifting and similar things:

On September 12, 2013, we published revised versions of our Privacy Policy and our User Agreement. Your continued use of LinkedIn means you agree to these revised documents, so please take a few minutes to read and understand them. Visit the LinkedIn blog to learn what these changes mean to you.

Really? Did you have this in 48-point bold type on or before Sept. 12? Of course not.

The why is because kids can now have LinkedIn accounts. Yeah, like the average 14-year-old is applying for a job via LinkedIn.

And, no, I'm not kidding. LinkedIn has lowered its age of usage to 14 as part of the privacy updates. 

It's all about the money. The "University Pages" are clearly an attempt to get more said universities to advertise to 14-18 year olds.

Great. And now, high school freshman can increase popularity contests by playing with LinkedIn's crack cocaine of endorsements.

I now have a poll up. Feel free to vote. 

And, Twitter's not in the mix yet. But stay tuned.

A likely-overvalued IPO will mean, as with Fraudbook, the need for more revenue streams. That means more ads, or more marketing of Twitter. Plus, with using Twitter as my log-in for Disqus since, per a friend of mine, OpenID has sadly fallen by the wayside, means I'm getting all sorts of commercial spam tweets. I've just been blocking them so far, but I'm soon going to start reporting them as spam. 

And, speak of the devil, three days after I write this, LinkedIn spams me on Twitter. And, I reported you as spam, I didn't just block you. 

Oct. 24, 2013: LinkedIn's latest spamminess? This idea of intruding into your personal email flow. 

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Per the first comment below, re LinkedIn, I become part of the solution and avoid remaining a passive part of the problem by refusing to accept more endorsements and refusing to pass them out. As a LinkedIn account is semi-de rigeur with many larger companies, at least, I'm not going to delete my account. But I'm not going to expand it any further. Like Facebook, I think we should also be wary about how much personal information we put on LinkedIn. 

And, so I have just done. 

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Actually, Twitter, with its laughably wrong suggestions on whom to "follow" (Barack Obama? When I know the Green Party has to have a Twitter account? Katy Perry? When I am not even sure what she's been in? Oops, she's not even an actress.) Seriously. Twitter has never suggested the St. Louis Cardinals' feed, or an individual Cardinal player. It's never suggested, besides the Green Party, say, Dennis Kucinich.

And, doorknob help us when it launches its IPO. 

And speaking of that devil, it just took the lid off that IPO.

Friedman's #socialmedia is flat

Groupon and Zynga are "social media"? In the mind of Teapot Tommy Friedman, yes. (Probably in the mind of David Brooks and some of his boboes, too, but he didn't co-write the column.)

In the real world the rest of us inhabit, Mr. My Internet is Flat, Zynga is about online games, with access/links that can be found on Facebook ... and other sites. Groupon isn't media at all, except to the degree ads are considered part of media, and other than Groupon coupons being valuable or not depending on other users, there's nothing social about it.

That said, Teapot Tommy's real inaccuracies are in economics. Groupon has yet to make a dime; both it and Zynga, IIRC, have backed off IPOs. More on how "problematic" Groupon is, is here:

Groupon faces concerns about the viability of its daily deals business model. The novelty of online coupons is wearing off. Some merchants are complaining that they are losing money — and customers— on the deals. And competitors are swarming the marketplace.

"Groupon is a disaster," says Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester Research analyst. "It's a shill that's going to be exposed pretty soon."

I think that sums it up pretty well.

Teapot then gets cloud computing all wrong:

The latest phase in the I.T. revolution is being driven (in part) by ... “the cloud” — those enormous server farms that hold and constantly update thousands of software applications, which are then downloaded (as if from a cloud) by users on their smartphones, making them into incredibly powerful devices that can perform myriad tasks.

Nooo, that's not quite what "the cloud" is.

With that in mind, and ignoring Zynga's and Groupon's not-so-sterling economic performance, it's no wonder Friedman can write a Jeff Jarvis-like paean to speculation.

LinkedIn becomes SpammedIn to a whole new dimension

The Dallas-Fort Worth regional jobs feed on LinkedIn got hit by at least 30 spam posts, all on different subthreads, about different offers, and even position wanted subthreads.

Actually, I think the LinkedIns, Monsters and CareerBuilders of the world deliberately allow some degree of this on the free versions of their services to try to drive people to the paid versions.

Oct. 24, 2013: LinkedIn's latest spamminess? This idea of intruding into your personal email flow.

Fortune agrees — social media bubble ahead

Ever since Goddam Sachs announced its big play for Facebook, I've been saying a new Internet/tech financial bubble was coming down the road, probably about 2015. The HuffPost/AOL merger only increased that idea in my mind.

Now Fortune magazine nods in agreement.

Examples are cited:

(R)ecent private market trading of LinkedIn puts its valuation at $3 billion or so. Do you really want to buy shares of a company that did just $18 million in sales in a recent quarter at more than 30 times those sales? Why? Because you think LinkedIn is going to be the next Facebook? Don't try to sell your shares to me.

That's seriously bubbly.

And this:

(T)he only reason that you would ever pay anything approaching the multiples that Facebook and Twitter are currently valued at is if you assume there's a greater fool waiting down the road to take those shares off your hands.

The fool .... is really driven by fantasy product ownership.

Really, just like bloggers at Examiner are driven by an online version of vanity press publishing, it's the same thing — vanity stocks.

LinkedIn, a potential big #fail?

Is LinkedIn in danger of becoming the latest good idea on the Internet to get hit by the Internet's biggest failings? While it may be good for extending personal networking, the job board sites are a different matter. They say "no spamming, for jobs only," but ... is a work at home offer for $800/month or more a real job? Is blogging for the Examiner, Suite 101, etc., a real job? Will LinkedIn crack down?

The answer is probably not. And, more people will get frustrated over its job boards.