Big Changes Underway at LinkedIn for Groups

Joe Gillespie, Thursday, September 4, 2008 @ 5:42 pm

LinkedIn has made several significant changes along the way. The changes that are underway now are in regard to Groups. In the past, members have been able to join as many groups as they want. I’ve found it’s a great way to reach out to people and explore areas of common interest, since the group logos generally appear on your profile. If you are logged in, when you view someone else’s profile it shows you the groups you have in common with that person.

The changes underway with groups have some positive and negative attributes. First, as a negative, LinkedIn is imposing a cap of 50 groups that any member can belong to. Changes have already started but effective 9/12/2008 if you haven’t already reduced the number of groups down to 50 LinkedIn will do it for you based on the sequence of when you originally joined various groups. While 50 may sound like a lot to some people, I was in 1,351 groups and deciding which groups to keep has been difficult, especially since I initiated and sponsored over 10 groups myself.

On the positive side groups will now have the ability within LinkedIn to support discussion groups, blogs. That means for a lot of groups you won’t need a Yahoo Group or something akin to that as a base and although the feature set may be more limited you’ll have tighter integration. Another negative is that LinkedIn could ultimately control your group since they control membership in LinkedIn. Stay tuned for updates as to how this is progressing.

If you haven't experienced what's available in terms of groups from LinkedIn, here's a way to check it out. Groups are free to join and when you perform a LinkedIn search, you can specifically search within specific groups. Support Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid by clicking the link below and Joining the Chicago 2016 LinkedIn Supporters Group:
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/54811

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1. Chicago Front-End Web Developers group forms on LinkedIn
2. Chicago JavaScript Meetup Group draws a big audience with varied skill levels
3. Who values your product and do you value them?
4. The imminent return of Really Simple History
5. Gmail, agile development and user experience design

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