[bradleysmith]

I agree. I'm a project manager, have been in multiple industries. Aviation, intelligence, product dev & mechanical engineering, and oil & gas all use Linkedin, and I benefited from using its service. Linkedin has provided both clients and meaningful job interviews for me; I even give them dollars for upgraded service from time to time.

If you are in sales, it's invaluable in finding individuals in organizations. Maybe some think this is a bad thing and that's fine; I do not. If you are job hunting, it is unbelievable to be able to put something directly in front of the actual person hiring before getting in the door.

Despite being filled with strangeness, many of their industry groups are good for finding specific knowledge. It's scummy (and much less knowledgable than HN or forums around the net), but that's just how some of the internets be, I guess.

It does seem a bit like MySpace; something almost exactly like what they are actually trying to accomplish.

I understand the disdain some have for Linkedin, but I myself have benefited from using it.