MyLinkComments: Public and Private Comments for LinkedIn Members

MyLinkComments at http://MyLinkComments.com is currently hosted at

http://LinkedIn.pbwiki.com/LinkedInProfileComments

MyLinkComments: Public and Private Comments for LinkedIn Members Overview Why MyLinkComments? What is MyLinkComments Freedom from LinkedIn More about Diigo Supercharge LinkedIn Public Private How to use Diigo for LinkedIn Get started You must use the standard URL View comments about a LinkedIn member Create comments about a LinkedIn member What about people saying about you? Issues, errors, etc. I saved a comment but not in the right URL format. Now what? Contact

Overview

MyLinkComments is a service that enables you to view and record public and private comments about LinkedIn members.

 

Why MyLinkComments?

Because on LinkedIn nobody can hear you scream.

 

LinkedIn provides no way to view or record comments aside from simple recommendations that must be approved by the member himself. Member notations enable others to both intelligently use LinkedIn and to obtain a member's reputation as reported by other members. It can answer questions like:

• Is the member behaving badly?
• Is the member active?
• Are there others who give the member especially strong or personal recommendations?
• Who have I used to send Introductions?
• What contact have I had with LinkedIn members?
• And finally where have all the sock orphans gone?

 

What is MyLinkComments

 

MyLinkComments is a system that overlays and is outside of LinkedIn. It use a web service called Diigo at http://diigo.com where I created a LinkedIn group. Diigo is a combination web page annotator and social network, where members set up groups to share web pages and comments. If you have the Diigo toolbar installed, you will see other members comments (if there are any) displayed on top of your browser web page.

 

The other part of MyLinkComments is a common protocol for viewing LinkedIn pages. That's covered in the How to use Diigo for LinkedIn section.

 

MyLinkComments is not a perfect and seamless solution at this time. But it gets the job done. This page will be used to record the latest instructions and tips.

 

Freedom from LinkedIn

 

The beauty of MyLinkComments is that it's outside of LinkedIn. While LinkedIn may in some decade add annotation, they will limit and control it in a way that is in LinkedIn's interests and protects member privacy. An extra-network or overlay like MyLinkComments allows people to contribute without the LinkedIn cops patrolling it or subjecting content to member complaints. You can be free and open with your comments.

 

More about Diigo

 

Diigo has plenty of cool features. But we'll just focus on basic use for LinkedIn here - bookmarking LinkedIn member pages and commenting on them.

 

Diigo works two ways. The web page stores your comments and bookmarks, as well as other people in your groups. You can manage your account, group, and comments there, as well as visit the comments and pages of other group users, or anyone in the Diigo community.

 

Diigo also is software. It's a toolbar add-in to your web browser, such as Firefox or MS Internet Explorer. It follows what page you're currently viewing and lets you create a sticky note to the page or highlighted text and visit past commented pages. In the background it stores that info on the Diigo web site.

 

Supercharge LinkedIn

 

Adding LinkedIn profile comments supercharges how you use LinkedIn. Now you can intelligently decide how to use and route invitations and Introductions. All you have to do is view the member's profile to see if there are any comments.

 

Public

 

You can post and share comments with fellow Diigo LinkedIn group members.

 

• Active? Don't waste your Introductions and InMails! 20% of LinkedIn members are inactive. They may have changed jobs and not updated their address. They may have altogether stopped using LinkedIn without deleting their account. They could just be on a long sabbatical. When your invitations bounce or your introductions aren't answered in a week (or whatever you consider reasonable), you can let other members know so they can avoid these inactive members.
• Good dog/bad dog! Are there members who have been especially helpful or responsive? Or have they been rude and sent nasty emails. Let other LinkedIn members know who they should and should not be networking with. Post your recommendations and complaints.
• More info. Are there other people you can refer who are similar to a LinkedIn member or is there information that's not on the profile that should be? Inquiring networkers want to know!

 

Private

 

You can also keep your comments private and available only to you.

• Personal info. List phone numbers, birthdays, funny stories, how you met the person, etc.
• Log. Keep a record of your LinkedIn contact and other communications.
• Ratings. Start a ratings system that provides a quantitative measure of that person. For example rate each member on a scale of 1-10 with the strength of your relationship or their networking cooperation.
• Professional notes. Store business and professional notes about the person that are not on the profile and not appropriate for public consumption.

 

How to use Diigo for LinkedIn

Get started

1. Go to http://diigo.com
2. Create an account
3. Download and install the toolbar
4. Join the Diigo LinkedIn group at http://groups.diigo.com/groups/LinkedIn
5. Visit my Diigo comment to make sure it's working at http://www.LinkedIn.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=5444337

 

You must use the standard URL

Regrettably LinkedIn provides all sorts of crap in their URLs. For example, here is one URL that LinkedIn created for me when I viewed my profile - http://www.~LinkedIn.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=5444337&fromSearch=0&sik=1182484485441&split_page=1&rd=in& authToken=3wT7GgZtaMts858MfpJmbYi4digkljnQldgkUUgjwMgz51d3h4gzkTcPcQd3gR&authType=NAME_SEARCH&goback=%2Esrp_1_1182484485441_in

 

Rather ugly. Diigo stores your comments with the URL. Big problem since the url even includes a unique "token" that will never be reused. So the only way this works is by using the LinkedIn member ID and a standard format. The following sections illustrate how to find and use that.

 

LinkedIn member ID

 

This is the number after "key=" above. My member number is 5444337. You'll find a similar number in the URL in the browser address bar whenever viewing someone's profile.

 

Standard URL

 

You must use standard URL format when viewing and posting a public or private comment via Diigo.

 

Standard format for LinkedIn profile URLs:	http://www.~LinkedIn.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=xxx	where xxx is the LinkedIn member ID
Example:	http://www.LinkedIn.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=5444337	Yeah, that's me again.

 

 

View comments about a LinkedIn member

There are a few ways to view comments.

 

To visit pages that have already been commented, go to http://groups.diigo.com/LinkedIn/bookmark . Enter the name in the search box in the upper right, click More, and select Search this group by full text.

 

From within LinkedIn, run a regular search or other operation to find someone's profile. View the profile and look at the URL.

 

If, similar to my long example above, the URL starts with the correct URL:

1. Directly edit the URL to remove the extraneous characters after the member ID so you end up with something like http://www.LinkedIn.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=5444337 .
2. Go to that URL.

 

In some cases LinkedIn may use a different URL format and make this a bit difficult. Here is the most efficient way to continue in this situation.

 

First, create a browser bookmark for the standard URL.

1. Copy and paste http://www.LinkedIn.com/profile?viewProfile=&key= into a browser window address.
2. Bookmark that page. It may help to save or edit the name so you remember it's the standard LinkedIn profile template URL.

 

Now to view comments, if any, for any LinkedIn profile:

1. View the LinkedIn profile.
2. If the profile URL is not in standard format, find and copy the LinkedIn member ID from the URL.
3. Select your bookmark for the standard LinkedIn profile template URL. LinkedIn will display your own page as its uses your own profile when there is no ID.
4. Paste the ID at the end of the URL and go to that page.

 

Create comments about a LinkedIn member

 

Visit the LinkedIn member's page as above using the standard URL. The easiest way to add a comment is to use your cursor to select the member's name at the top of the page, right click, and select Diigo > Highlight and Sticky Note. In the note be sure to select the LinkedIn group.

 

What about people saying about you?

 

You can visit http://groups.diigo.com/LinkedIn/bookmark and search the bookmarks to see if your LinkedIn page has been commented. If you have Diigo installed, just visit your own web page at http://www.~LinkedIn.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=xxx, where xxx is your LinkedIn member ID.

 

Issues, errors, etc.

 

I saved a comment but not in the right URL format. Now what?

At this time Diigo does not provide a way to edit comments to correct the URL. This feature has been requested. To recover from an incorrect URL:

1. Create a correct comment as above at the correct URL. Copy and paste the comment text from the incorrect URL.
2. Go to http://groups.diigo.com/LinkedIn/bookmark, locate the bookmark with the incorrect URL, and delete it

 

Contact

 

If you have any tools, uses, tips, or suggestions related to MyLinkComments, Diigo, or LinkedIn profile comments, or request to have a LinkedIn group comment deleted, email me at marc@mylinkdaddy.com .

 

MarcFreedman