Ask IH: Would you be interested in a LinkedIn replacement?

@fameoflight I think you're going about this the wrong way.

If it were me, I'd begin by asking myself (and others) the question "what problem do you and other developers have, that you've tried and failed to solve with LinkedIn?"

The answers you'll receive to that question will be much more helpful in framing the problem/solution you end up working on.

Good luck!

Honestly probably not. Linkedin is awful but it is there for a specific reason for me which is networking with non-tech professionals. When I want to network with tech professionals I tend to do it on a niche basis like Indiehackers, HN, elixirforum, etc.

I'm sure the intentions are good, but I think a lot of the replies here are too dismissive.

I don't think you could replace linkedin on purpose (I can imagine very well funded teams or e.g., Google trying and failing) because I think most people are too lazy to switch, even if an alternative was somehow better.

But for a narrowly defined niche? I don't see why it couldn't work.

You'd probably have to do "unscalable" things like offer to import people's profiles, maybe even by hand. And you'd need a lot of people onboard for network effects to kick in. But if you got enough good engineers in one place, recruiters / companies would come for sure.

Having said that, does it already exist? Is the market already saturated? I don't know because I've never looked.

I sometimes do contract work as a software engineer.

I reluctantly signed up for linkedin and filled out a basic profile. I can't remember why and it has never done anything for me. The only activity at all has been recruiters contacting me for work I'm not interested in.

On the other hand, I found a great client through remoteok's emails. remoteok had pretty humble beginnings (AFAIK as an un-funded, solo, side project). But it did something linkedin has failed to do for me.

If I could sign up for linkedin for software engineers and it put me in contact with interesting people and maybe sent offers my way, yes I would be interested.

If you build it ping me at m [at] lattejed [.] com and I'll fill out a profile.

LinkedIn is my resume.

It's where recruiters find candidates, and it's where recruiters post work available. I've landed over 10 interviews I didn't apply for in the past 6 months after I did a bit of keyword optimization on my profile.

It's not a social network, it's a hybrid job board. As a set-it-and-forget-it kind of online profile, I'd say it's offering me plenty of value for almost no investment.

I like LinkedIn, and I definitely wouldn't switch.

Don't do a replacement for LI. It won't work at the moment. Build a replacement for FB instead ;)

I want a site where I can put in a job title, location, and search radius, and it will show me a map of companies hiring for that title, according to the job's location, with each company represented by a color-coded pin according to their rating on glassdoor or a similar employer-review system.

No!

Others have said it, too, but it really depends on what you're using LI for.

• Actually using it for real networking and/or news? Useless.

• Using it as a free online resume? Kinda/sorta useful.

• Trying to connect with like-minded industry experts? I find LinkedIn Groups absolutely horrible and impersonal, but I'm sure somebody gets value out of them.

• Using it to find job opportunities? I'd say very useful, especially if you're a developer (recruiter emails just rain down).

I personally stopped using LinkedIn for networking years ago, and realized that it acts as a powerful megaphone when I have something to say (i.e. a product launch, useful when I was at CodeFights).

Could you snip off any of the use cases above and build a more intentional community around it? Sure.

There should be an opportunity for LinkedIn for Developer.

I remember listening to the founder's talk in the early day, where is he proud of getting a bunch of people to do the most boring thing: spend 30 minutes submit their resume online. So if you can get a bunch of developers to do that, the game is on.

Then again, perhaps the product which challenges LinkedIn is not another LinkedIn. Do need to give more thoughts how you plan to approach this idea.

You'll have a very hard time competing against Linkedin. People trust it, and mostly because it's provably filled with real humans, not bots. You'd have to introduce serious ID verification mechanisms, but then again people are reluctant to send IDs to unknown companies.

One thing that makes the difference is there is meetup function where I can make myself available to meet other people in certain areas during certain and we both can be connected.

That is certainly very powerful.

I tried to remove myself from Linkedin years ago and still have spam originating from the deleted account

I seriously feel LinkedIn is completely useless to me as a developer. I would love a better alternative. I am thinking of starting one.

I seriously feel that you overestimate LinkedIn as something useful for you as a developer at all :)

https://twitter.com/alexiskold/status/968623321259692032

less g̶r̶o̶w̶t̶h̶ ̶h̶a̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ spam emails.

I seriously feel LinkedIn is completely useless to me as a developer. I would love a better alternative.

What goals do you want this alternative to help you accomplish?

I actually landed a couple of very lucrative gigs through LinkedIn back when I was doing contract work.

This comment was deleted 6 years ago