LinkedIn Store Launches; World Yawns
It was with much fanfare that LinkedIn launched its very own store. On the corporate blog is the breathless proclamation “Start Your Holiday Shopping Now!”. For a moment lets set aside the fact that most people don’t wait for their 3rd or 4th favorite social network to tell them when to shop. This is LinkedIn, the network that you join when you haven’t yet worked up the cajones to really look for a new job. Buying a shirt from LinkedIn doesn’t carry the gravitas of the One Campaign, the geek cred of Mozilla, or the awesomeness of the MySpace/Zazzle band schwag announcement. It’s as if LinkedIn woke up one morning and thought it could win back some cool points lost to other social networks like Facebook or Bebo by opening a frickin’ T-Shirt shop. What’s next in the misguided attempts for Web 2.0 credibility - the LinkedIn Segway?
The takeaway is as follows: if your core membership is unemployed or soon-to-be unemployed corporate, tie-wearing management, don’t try selling them tees. Or if you do, at least have something more creative than something that screams “I have found nothing else to fill the vast void in my life than to shill for a boring, business website”. It’s just too sad.
November 5th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
OK - I can understand the “yawn”, but if you really think that LinkedIn’s “core membership is unemployed or soon-to-be unemployed corporate, tie-wearing management,” you are SO far off-base.
And some of us don’t find business boring.
November 5th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
My apologies. There is one other group that would care - those trying to increase the page rank for their LinkedIn ’scoop’ site. For those even TShirts of dubious excitement and even stranger intent constitutes an ‘event’.