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The Rising Trend of Business Networking

A growing trend shows some truth to the old adage it's not what you know but who you know.

Internet users are increasingly registering with business networking sites, Web sites that store a repository of business profiles of registered users, where they can contact each other and make visible their own contacts, colleagues and recommendations. Millions of net savvy professionals and students are eager (or just curious) to see if such Web sites will help to increase their industry connections and enhance their career prospects.

Business networking sites include Ryze , Plaxo , and INmobile.org , but among the most popular is LinkedIn , which grew from eight million members in February 2007 to 17 million members at the end of the year.

What These Sites Offer

Such sites allow you to view where your business contacts are working now and see if they have any connections at a company where you would like to work. Users can seek out job candidates. They may write and post a recommendation for a colleague or request a recommendation from an old boss. They can join groups based on alumni affiliations or professional interests. On Sermo , a site for licensed physicians, 25,000 doctors may consult with colleagues on different medical areas. Whether users have an advantage over non-users in the job market has yet to be seen. ABC News reports, however, that such sites will continue to see an increase in use.

To join, one must register with a business networking site, typically free for a basic membership. The user then fills out a simple form that creates an online profile, which may be as detailed as a resume or as simple as the user's name and job title.

Once registered, the user searches the site for coworkers and managers, past and present, as well as classmates and other acquaintances, and invites them to join their list of connections, thus enhancing the user's business network. This activity mimics the relationship-building aspect well loved by the users of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

Furthermore, the reputation system  used by some of these sites, helps some users to standout while hindering others, similar to how a seller on eBay  who is well established, as rated by previous buyers, may be more popular and trusted by buyers than a seller who has a poor or unknown reputation. The system allows a user to get to know someone new based on the past impressions from others' experiences. The system is a way to ensure quality and professionalism on business networking sites where user-generated content can otherwise become dubious.

What Dangers Exist

Similar to the social networking sites, business networking sites carry with them some privacy issues. First, users tend to display a complete list of their present and past employers for others to see, so users should consider how this could negatively or positively impact their reputation and the amount of personal information available about them online. Also, a user’s key connections, like prospective clients, can be found, which could be harmful for an individual or business if this information is used by the competition.

These privacy issues become a concern due to a trend among users to leave their profiles on the default settings. By default most business networking sites keep the user's profile:

  • Visible to all members and even non-members of the site;
  • Displayed nearly in full detail; (One Web site, LinkedIn, has the user's photograph turned off by default.)
  • Accessible as a featured suggested contact in the newsletter of the service; and
  • Searchable on common search engines.

Users can take the extra step to ensure their online profile does not reveal too much information or the wrong kind of information that might put their offline identity in jeopardy, such as personal contact information, location, or birth date. It's important that users seek out the "settings" area when creating or editing a profile. Customize the settings to determine what information can be disclosed to the public, to your network, or kept private. To increase privacy, turn off search engine indexing in the settings, which will prevent your profile from being found on general search engines like Google.

Time will tell whether business networking sites will give users a boost up the corporate ladder. In the meantime, users can explore the benefits of business networking but they have to pay close attention to the risks in regards to their privacy.

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