I have been a Linked In user for a couple of years now. This month I decided to upgrade myself to a paying account in order to take advantage of inmail (Linked In’s service that allows you to email others with whom you have no direct connection) and to canvas my network about an introduction to the South By Southwest conference in Texas.

My current account level allows me three in-mail introductions per month and membership in the Open Link network. Based on my experience in the past week since I upgraded, I really feel like the benefits are well worth the costs.

I started by canvassing my network about an introduction to someone at the SXSW conference. Within 15 minutes, I got a direct link to the guy I was looking to meet. I also reconnected with a number of folks in my network who were curious about my request.

Then I used In-Mail to contact two people with whom I am trying to develop a business partnership. Both are extremely busy CXOs. Both responded within a couple of days of my request.

We are just beginning development on our Swift platform for conferences. (We expect to be ready to demo in early December.) V1 will have Facebook integration so that you can network around conferences using the Swift application for Facebook. Linked In is busy working on opening up its API for applications like Swift. We hope that Linked In opens up quickly because I can imagine deriving even more value from networking via Linked In around conferences I am attending. Being able to contact people who are also attending conferences with similar interests or people whom I would like to meet would certainly be a driver for upgrading my Linked In membership further.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 2:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.