LinkedIn Open Networker - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A Linked In Open Networker (or LION) is a member of the business-oriented social networking site

Social network service

A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...

LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...

who positively encourages connections from some members or any other member, whether or not they have had a previous business relationship. The abbreviation

Abbreviation

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase...

LION™ is used, and is usually placed somewhere in the profile

User profile

A user profile is a collection of personal data associated to a specific user. A profile refers therefore to the explicit digital representation of a person's identity...

page. Created in september 2007

September 2007

September 2007 is the ninth month of that year. It began on a Saturday and 30 days later, ended on a Sunday.-International holidays:* September 3 – Labor Day * September 4 – Krishna Janmaashtami...

and moderated by John L. Evans, the LION™ community gathers more than members in 2011.

LIONs Linked In Open Networkers

LinkedIn networking philosophy is based on a simple rule that says that a person should invite to connect only persons that they personally know (for instance, school colleagues, coworkers, business partners, service providers etc.).
However, this limitation is viewed by some members of the LinkedIn community as overly restrictive. So some of them have adopted a policy of accepting invitations even from strangers. They circumvent some LinkedIn requirements (e.g. having to know a person's email address in order to send a linking invitation to them) by publicly posting their email addresses in their profiles, and stating that they openly accept invitations, thus becoming LinkedIn Open Networkers, or simply LIONs.
The most important LION's rule is that in no circumstance an invitation is to be replied by clicking the "I don't know X" (X being the name of the person that sent the invitation) or even worse, mark it as spam. In case a LION doesn't want to connect with a specific person, all that he needs to do is to archive the invitation, which thus is set to automatically expire. (Choosing "I don't know X" or marking an invitation as spam can cause LinkedIn to impose restrictions on the account of the inviting party).

It must be noted though that not everybody that displays an email address on their profile is automatically a LION. Usually, the LION word is also present on the profile. LIONs can nuance the above rule of conduct when it comes to the received invitations, for instance, there are LIONs that won't accept standard invitations and require people to write customized invitations (for instance explaining why they would like to connect).

History

The LIONs™ was founded by Christian Mayaud in January 2006

January 2006

January 2006: ← – January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December – →-1 January 2006 :...

. Christian was quickly joined by like-minded John L. Evans from the UK, and between them they rapidly established the LIONs™ Group on Yahoo. John L. Evans applied to LinkedIn for a Badge of recognition and invented the idea of including [LION]™ in members' name/headlines to enable LIONs™ to search each other out and connect. Lists of LIONs™ were available at the Yahoo Group to enable mass Invites to be sent. John L. Evans continues to run the LIONs™ Groups on LinkedIn

and Yahoo!

Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...

and is seeking trade mark/design protection.

FAUX LION WARNINGS:
There are lots and lots of people claiming to or to be associated with the LIONs™:

Marc Freedman created the MyLink500 site (now a part of MyLinkNetwork) to enable people to post their number of connections, together with MyLink Network, where networkers could specify their level of openness (Libertine, Open, or Closed) with corresponding CSV lists.
TopLinked, whose founder is not publicly known, provides a variety of lists and ways for people to promote themselves for a fee. However, those lists are traded and will lead to increased incidence of SPAMMING
Spam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...

.

The LIONs™ position as the leading Open Networking Group on LinkedIn is constantly being challenged. Lots of other Groups have been started claiming to represent LIONs™ or to be part of the LIONs™. The only bona fide LIONs™ are those to be found at LinkedIn, Yahoo and 'Lair' (TheMetaNetwork) as per the URLs below. There are also Groups for LIONs™ to identify themselves on facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

, for example, however, these Groups are not managed as diligently as the aforementioned.
Amongst the reasons that others pass themselves off as LIONs™ / Open Networkers is to build email lists for various purposes including potentially spamming. This is very damaging for all concerned, to the reputation

Reputation

Reputation of a social entity is an opinion about that entity, typically a result of social evaluation on a set of criteria...

of the Social Networks, the LIONs™ and Open Networking generally. Look out for Groups which invite all Open Networkers from any and all Groups, and for Groups making huge emphasis of numbers. Look at the background to the sponsors - why are they promoting their Group - are they in businesses built on mass mailing and pyramid style enterprise?
The LIONs™ is the only Group that shares its membership lists with the members - a Group set up for the mutual benefit of the members.
The LIONs™ does not charge its members for anything and makes no offers of enhanced membership or self promotion if paid.
The LIONs™ advice - if it doesn't carry the LIONs™ logo - don't trust it. If it does, and you're suspicious, report it to the LIONs™ via the Yahoo Group.

LinkedIn critics on the LIONs

While not having explicitly prohibited LIONs™, LinkedIn

has adopted a rather negative position against LIONs™. Indeed, LION can be perceived as a way to hack the LinkedIn professional network service

Professional network service

A professional network service is a type of social network service that is focused solely on interactions and relationships of a business nature rather than including personal, nonbusiness interactions.Notable examples include LinkedIn, Viadeo, XING and Wisestep.com.-See also:* Business...

and to use it free of charge.

When LinkedIn first started, there were no limits on the number of invitations one could send, where currently each person that joins LinkedIn now starts with a fixed number of 3,000 invitations. LinkedIn

now placed a limit on the number of connections that you can have. At LinkedIn's beginnings, the number of connections one had was also visible in full. When a person gathers more than 500 connections, only "500+" is now displayed instead of the actual number the connections. Moreover, this number is visible for the account owner only in the Connections section. It was for the above reasons (amongst others) that the LIONs™ came into existence. For quite a while, LIONs™ were organized outside of LinkedIn because LinkedIn Groups supported nothing more than the ability to display the LION’s “[LION]” badge [designed by John L. Evans]. When LinkedIn started the User-generated Groups program, the LION™ group on LinkedIn gained momentum with the addition of Discussions, for example. However, the real and meaningful, serious LIONs™' discussions continued to take place on Yahoo.

External links

Authentic LION™ open networker groups :

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