I was reading about LinkedIn's quarter-billion dollar valuation, and agree with one point about how LinkedIn is primarily only good for job-hunting or recruiters. For me, while it certainly has value in that realm, I'd like it to serve as a way to keep track of the people I have met professionally or worked with, even as they take new jobs, get new email addresses, etc. However, the LinkedIn process requires you to ask permission to add someone to your network through an email invitation. I find that an unnecessary and awkward step, and I usually refrain from doing it - although I almost alway accept invitations from other. I think it's much more natural to just add someone to your network automatically from their profile (so if I come across someone I know I can just click a link and they end up on my list). At that point, the person you added can be notified that you added them and asked if they want to reciprocate (by adding you to their network).
Maybe it's just my introverted nature manifesting itself in user experience design, but to me that seems much more natural (just like I might hang on to someone's business card while they might toss mine). I suppose the down-side of my plan would be that I could, say, add Bill Gates to my network even though I've never met the man, but the LinkedIn site could display whether or not the linkage had been reciprocated to show if I really did know Bill or was just a big MSFT fan.
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