LinkedIn's Most Unusual Members: Meet The Super-Connected

LinkedIn open networkers, or LIONs, accept almost all LinkedIn connection requests and introduce strangers out of good will. Here's a look at this controversial group and its approximately 16,000 members who'd like to be known as the saints of social networking, but are sometimes called spammers.

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According to LinkedIn, a connections list reflects your reputation as a professional. If you connect with anyone and everyone, it's hard to keep track of contacts that populate your connections list. Presuming some of those connections are, even unknowingly to you, shady operators, it reflects badly upon you.

"Growing your LinkedIn ecosystem to reflect your real world business connections is critical since it defines the people you'd recommend and support, even if it means putting your professional reputation on the line," Patrick Crane, LinkedIn's VP of marketing, wrote in a blog post in November.

According to Alba of Jibberjobber.com, LinkedIn's defense of this strategy hasn't been without a few inconsistencies; LIONs might use even stronger language. For example, when new users sign up for a LinkedIn account, the service offers to troll their e-mail boxes to see if they have potential connections already on LinkedIn.

"LinkedIn says only connect with people you know and trust," Alba says. "But then it says, by the way, import all your Outlook and Gmail contacts. Many of those aren't close friends and business contacts."

Burda, who estimates that he can reach at least 90 percent of the LinkedIn network with his immediate connections and second and third degrees of separation, says he believes that LinkedIn's stance against open networking might stem from the fact open networkers cannibalize other revenue generating areas for the company.

While LinkedIn sells advertising to help subsidize the experience of free users, another significant revenue stream comes fromselling special premium accounts to recruiters, salespeople and other businesses interested in getting easier access to the 30 million professionals on the service. These value-added services include increased search results and the ability to send "InMails," which allow you to contact not only your second and third degree contacts, but also people outside your network. LinkedIn's "business plus plan" runs for $50 per month (or $500 for the year), and its "corporate solutions" plan lets companies buy multiple accounts with premium services and access to LinkedIn (prices aren't provided on LinkedIn's website).

"LinkedIn could see someone like me as a threat or as eating into their revenue," Burda says. "I'm not a recruiter either. This is just my hobby."