I just joined LinkedIn, a site that allows people to see (and reference) their connections to others. What’s so interesting about LinkedIn is that it allows you to see not only your “connections,” but also the entire extended network of connections built by other members. Critically, in order to contact those Connections, you have to ask permission from your Connection.
I look forward to seeing how well it maintains trust as I try it out, but it seems to capture both the trust and permission aspect of networking correctly, while still allowing members to see the people in the network. And of course, all of the aspects of the web’s metadata are there: searching and industry categorization of people makes it potentially very useful for exploring ideas or businesses.
