I was talking to my friends Tony and Mike today at our local ISSA meeting and the subject of social networks came up. I was explaining that it makes me uncomfortable to get LinkedIn requests to get connected from people that I hardly know. My reasoning for this is that (I believe) there is an implied trust relationship between people who are linked in and correspondingly it impacts one’s reputation.

Mike, on the other hand, is happy to connect with anyone who asks (his LinkedIn account is Mike Noitsnot if you want to link in with him ). He is perfectly fine with connecting vicariously. And clearly many folks are.

At this point in the conversation, Tony piped up, “So I guess that makes Mike a whore and Pete a prude.” I think this about sums it up.

So, which are you and why? For the life of me, I can’t see the value in LinkedIn if you don’t know the people you are connecting with and have some level of trust in them. I am waiting for the first time someone gets murdered due to a vicarious linkedin relationship… okay, I am being a bit melodramatic, but I don’t see it as too farfetched to find out you are connected to people you really don’t want to be connected to.