Tue 28 Aug 2007
Do I win some kind of prize for having more than 600 “buddies” at LinkedIn? Ironically, just as my LinkedIn network is bursting at the seams, I start getting invites to join Facebook - which I’m trying to stay off of for as long as humanly possible…
Admittedly, I don’t do much to actively cultivate contacts/etc - I just kinda sit back and click yes whenever someone wants to link up. Though, having the IGDA’s “private group” does help, with over 1000 members linked into that. Mind you, I’m told there’s a similarly large IGDA group at Facebook - I just can’t see it since I’m not registered.
I’m curious to understand how much benefit those in the game industry get from these social networking sites. Is it mainly personal/fun, or is business getting done, jobs being acquired, etc?
August 28th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Dude, sign up for Facebook. Think of it as MySpace - it’s a totally different intent from LinkedIn. LinkedIn is great for a professional network; Facebook is more of a community of friends than a community of industry co-workers. There are a lot of applications on Facebook that are designed to help you get to know other people better - in a lot of cases they are not the kind of thing I’m really that excited sharing with everyone I’ve ever worked with. Hahahhaaha :-)
I use social networking sites to: keep in touch with people I’ve worked with, find people via friends of friends, make new connections, re-meet old connections, and have even gotten some business contracts as a result of them. I think they’re great!
I do think that I don’t see an immediate need for more social networks to pop up though :)
August 28th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
LinkedIn is super useful for business. I use it to (1) find the email address of colleagues that I’ve never emailed before, (2) get in contact with someone at Company A through a mutual friend, (3) search for game developers in a city I’m visiting, which usually results in me having lunch with folks I haven’t seen in years.
Facebook is just friendly fun. And as Mark said above, friendly fun can sometimes lead to business opportunity too. (Just as long as you don’t try too hard to make it happen!)
August 28th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I have just recently started using linkedin pretty hardcore, and I see all the same benefits that you already listed in your post. I don’t think that there is any possible downside to being connected with as many people as possible.
I am jealous of your 600 contacts on linkedin, I just recently overcame the 600 registered users on my little social game news site http://devbump.com
August 28th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Well, like you said, there’s an IGDA Facebook group; therefore, you are dutybound as the Exec. Dir. to make your presence known there. ;p
August 29th, 2007 at 6:09 am
I’m not convinced by Facebook. It looks cool but my girlfriend is spending so much time on it that I feel I’m way too busy to start an account there.
I’m sticking with LinkedIn though. So far I’m not using it much but maybe it will help me when I switch to freelance work.
September 1st, 2007 at 6:34 pm
I must admit, Facebook has got silly for me now they’ve added lots of silly things to decline (for me anyway, I usually can’t be bothered). My list of to-do from leaving it a few weeks isn’t too bad, but still:
1 friend request, 2 group invitations, 2 zombie invitations, 2 wall post requests, 2 likeness quiz requests, 2 vampire invitations, 1 werewolf invitation, 2 top friends friend requests, 2 compare requests, 1 poke pro invitation, 1 friendship quotes request, 1 x me friend request.
I can’t imagine what it’d be like with 600 friends doing stuff like that (I have 23 friends on it).
Now, I have never used LinkedIn however, I wonder if that would be worth joining. Sounds a lot more useful. Facebook is more fun I guess.
September 2nd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Jason, it’s time for me to come clean. Years ago when linked-in was just starting out, I had several people link to me, and was tempted to forget about it. Then I saw that you had more links than me - probably 40 to my 30 or something absurdly low like that - and I took that as a personal challenge. Sure, you are in a position to meet scads of people, but I always prided myself on my rolodex. So I started a game between us. I found other friends already on linked-in (have never sunk to actually solicitiing people who don’t have an account yet) and invited them until I had more than you. And for the last several years, I always stayed about 10-20 links ahead of you. Then at GDC this year I happened to come clean about this to Brian Reynolds, and we realized that since the system only announces totals up to 500, I could finally relax if I hit that first. A few months ago I got an email from Brian - “check out Jason’s total”. You were at 493, and I had something like 487. So I went nuts for two days and pushed up over 500 and pointed it out to Brian when I made it. Actually on June 14th, as it happens.
Now, if I’d ever actually told you about this before I have no doubt you could have made an entry here in your blog and had 200 IGDA members happily link to you in a week - but hey, you can’t fault a game designer for trying to game the system.
Thank you for an enjoyable game that you didn’t know you were playing!
Noah
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:22 pm
@Noah:
Wow, that’s awesome! Happy to have provided you with the “ghost car” to chase ;)
Mind you, to boost my ego a bit, I will say that the vast majority of my connections came to me (ie, I did not actively cultivate links/invites, etc).
And, FYI, I totally caved and signed into Facebook. And, in less that a week I’ve been “friend requested” 34 times.
Vroom, vroom!
PS: I’m up to 610 LinkedIn connections!