Not sure if this is the first time a US “Web 2.0″ company took a great idea from a European company (usually it’s the other way around), but the reverse hotlist is definitely a feature that Linkedin needed. German based Xing, Linkedin’s main competitor, had great success with this functionality, especially that it turned it’s “business network” in Europe’s largest unofficial dating site.
I’ve written about the reverse hotlist function before and in my eyes it is one of the best features a social network can have. Linkedin should get a major boost by this feature, especially that Linkedin, without a subscription, is pretty useless.
In my opinion communication between users of a social network is key to succeed and only a “view” can have a major impact on how Linkedin grows over the next few years.
Unfortunately Linkedin uses this functionality not to help, but to tease people to upgrade. That is totally legitimate, but they way they integrated it, shows me, that they don’t understand their business want their user to commuicate in an efficient way. Even with the upgrade , I won’t be able to see more than “someone from xy company”.
What a waste of resources for a big player like Linkedin!
