Online networking services such as LinkedIn and Biznik offer entrepreneurs and business owners a great way to connect with others in the industry, find work, or even find employees or collaborators.
LinkedIn appears to be based on the Six Degrees of Separation concept, keeping you apprised of your connections, their connections, their connections connections, etc. It becomes easy to get introduced or recommended, or you can search for fellow employees or old classmates. If people in your network are hiring, you can see this in your member panel. Got questions? LinkedIn has Answers. Just ask, and one or more members will likely answer.
Biznik
Biznik’s social network was once Seattle-based, but just relaunched with new features and a wider geographic scope. Thanks to location-aware features, online meetings can turn into event planning. Other new features include messaging and business referrals.
These are merely two of many online networks, though these are probably most suited to business owners, professionals and entrepreneurs.
July 7th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Hi Dan, thanks for the comment and the compliment, though I’m not sure I did justice to either. I’m much more familiar with LinkedIn, but hopefully as I learn more about Biznik, I can do a more comprehensive profile of its benefits, as I think it holds much value for intended readers of this blog.
July 10th, 2007 at 11:44 am
I use both and tend to spend more time on BizNik then on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a nice place to keep a list of your contacts, but doesn’t have many ways to interact with them. I think BizNik solves that by enabling collaboration/communication on their site. Networking is not just about referrals it is about meeting people with similar interests, too. Have you heard about Konnects (http://www.konnects.com)? They are simliar to BizNik but allow people to setup their own networks/communities for free(BizNik only seperates by location). Somewhat similar than Ning but then for the business world. You can even share ad and subscriptoin revenue on your own network, I guess great for people that have large networks already or event coordinators.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Gani, thanks for the insight. I have used Ning but not Konnects. I’ll have to check it out.
-raj