[pallandt]

I don't know anyone personally that uses LinkedIn as a medium for establishing a friendship.

People already have Facebook for that, or even Twitter, Tumblr, Google+ and so on. I generally never turn down connection requests from LinkedIn (even if I don't know the person) unless the requester is interested in ridiculous stuff such as 'advancing our careers by giving each other endorsements'. Yes, someone specifically sent me such a message and it made me remove them from my connection list.

I've also connected with quite a lot of people I 'met' through various Coursera courses I took and that seemed smart/interesting, but not with the intention of friending them. They sometimes make insightful comments to LinkedIn groups they're subscribed...I can read this in the Updates section. Sometimes they launch new business ventures and I'm happy for them they put the Startup Engineering course to good use. None of these people have bothered me with anything, but I have the opportunity to learn something by watching them evolve.

[ameoba]

So we all know that everyone is on LinkedIn & every recruiter in the world is spamming us with invites but who the fuck actually uses it & gets any value out of it?

[10098]

Well I landed my current job after responding to a linkedin request. True, it happened after a long and twisted series of events, but the linkedin message was the catalyst.

[jes]

I wound up getting a six month gig because someone I worked for 15 years ago saw that I had just quit another job.

But yeah, I think I know what you mean, because I have used it for a long time.

[fmavituna]

How is that working for you in the long term? I've got 600+ pending requests that I haven't accepted because I don't know them. At the same time couldn't bring myself to ignore or reject them either so they are "pending".

So I'm really curious about the advantages and disadvantages of accepting everyone and having lots of connections (i.e. 1000+) in LinkedIn.

[chaostheory]

This is why I quit Linkedin a long time ago. Most of the requests were from people I've never even met.