A year and a half ago, LinkedIn announced Live Video. I applied for it and re-applied five or six times, only to keep being told there’s some internal cabal type group controlling access to it? WTF? From what I have seen so far, this group seems to have no idea how platforms succeed over the last 5 years or have never seen the heady days of success Linkedin once had, that I’ve watched Microsoft ineptly destroy on so many levels. Do you know why Google+, Buzz and other Google attempts at social networks failed? Its because they were owned by a corporate overlord with less accountability and lack of do or die entrepreneurism to be as competitive as a standalone company. The same thing with MySpace, once it was bought and run by a corporate overlord it died. Since Microsoft’s acquisition of Linkedin, the site has just been lackluster and phoning in it with what seems like an AOL, drain it till subscriptions dry out attitude.
The fact that a guy like me with a HUGE video library on Youtube alone my videos have nearly 22 MILLION VIEWS, along with other professionals, or for that matter ANYONE cant get access to Live Video ON A PLATFORM THAT IS _PAID_ IN MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTIONS IN 2020 IS A FUCKING JOKE. That’s putting it nicely. In 2015, a tiny teamed Meerkat launched with live video and I was in the top 7 early on. Its 2020 and every successful active social media platform has widely available live video except Linkedin. Platforms with live videos are a hit! TikTok is probably more successful than Linkedin in use at this point. People are paying up to $99 a month for an outdated UI and platform with trickle-down live video? Meanwhile, I keep being told there’s some internal cabal group strangle holding this, trying to pick winner and loser creators? Seriously keep repeating that line of paying for an antiquated platform to realize how stupid that is in your head. A site that can cost you $100 in 2020 DOESNT HAVE OPEN LIVE VIDEO? WTF.
For this last year and a half, I kept applying and pulling away from using Linkedin as many people have as an outdated platform filled with spam & non-business cutesy memes and knowing it had live video rationing made it worse. What qualifies me to do video? I have almost 4000 videos on YouTube with nearly 22 MILLION VIEWS watched and have been paid very well over 11 years there. I have 9 Podcasts with 600+ episodes interviewing CEOs, famous Authors, TV news regulars, and brilliant minds yet somehow I’m not good enough for Linkedin’s little private cabal group strangle holding the success of the platform and bringing it into 2020? I built a 130,000 group on Linkedin from zero. I have over 400,000 following across a ton of social media accounts and can pull 10’s of millions in eyeballs. I have a ton of accolades, top lists I appear on and I still can’t get access to it AFTER A YEAR AND A HALF. Right now EVERYONE should have access to it!
For the longest time, it started becoming aware to me that there was likely a reason they were not allowing platform-wide live video to be available to everyone. Most likely I dreaded because they were concerned that LinkedIn had already fallen to a point of being the last days of Google+ was just filled with overseas scammy spam. I suspected they knew it would lower the quality of garbage to even more spam. I finally just quit paying for Linkedin, its offensive they are the only major platform without available live video to everyone, and yet they are the few that ask people to pay for it?
So finally I reached out to their press department, and they recently validated my worst fears that LinkedIn has been sitting on live video access for a year and a half, under some sort of pretense that they only want high-quality people using video. This was their reply: “We apologize for the delay in our response to your application. We are taking a thoughtful approach to evaluating each application to help ensure that broadcasters are creating high-quality content that is relevant for our members. For consideration, it’s important to fill out every field of the application so we can better understand how you plan to leverage LinkedIn Live, including your ideas for how you’d want to use live video.”
Basically, Linkedin’s live video cabal thinks they are some sort of savior to a platform already rife with zombie users, Google+ final days type spam, and instead is sinking the ship by not advancing into 2015 technology. And if they think I don’t qualify because I barely use Linkedin anymore, THAT IS THE EXACT REASON I’VE NEARLY ABANDONED THE PLATFORM, with all the other smart users I see elsewhere. Thats why 70% of Linkedin is non-US users, those users have left for smarter platforms WITH LIVE VIDEO. On top of that, I have friends who have gotten access to Linkedin’s live video and laughed about how they never use it or rarely do. They think its funny how wasted the access is and someone like me cant get it. What little live video I’ve seen awarded has been largely junk as well. Poorly produced, last few nights I watched some guy REBROADCASTING on his Live Video access HIS TWITCH ACCOUNT FEED! He was talking up investments and then sometimes for hours just broadcasting himself cruising the internet watching videos. WHAT THE FUCK LINKEDIN. Live video that isn’t even organic and being brought over from Twitch and you want to tell me you’re doing some special approval shit to increase quality in the system? I watched one the other day with the worst lighting, audio and benign discussion. The worst was someone given live video was broadcasting ANTI-MASK, ANTI-VAX, ANTI-DR. FAUCI AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES GALORE. THIS IS THE NUT JOB CRAP THAT LINKEDIN THIS IS HIGH MINDED? When I reported this to their Press department they blew me off.
Maybe this is the reason I cant get live video, I have content on other platforms of anti-Trump posts and famous authors on my podcasts that have been critical of Trump? Given Linkedin’s showing of a toxic racist environment that very likely could be the reason I’m excluded by the cabal: Daily Beast LinkedIn Staffers Go All-Lives-Matter During ‘Dumpster Fire’ Meeting on Racism. I usually avoid outright political posts on Linkedin but I do post my author interviews with book critical of authoritarianism and the more I think about how I dont qualify to this secretive cabal, actually, the more that political prejudice makes sense. Much of my content is supporting Black Lives Matter movement. I’m just floored at what this cabal thinks most of what they approved great video content. Does Linkedin have a drug check or political policy on whoever is overseeing what they think is “great content.” Or is Linkedin just pulling an AOL phoning it in until the subscriptions die off like AOL, Google+ and MySpace?
The concept that system-wide live video could make Linkedin any worse is imbecilic. On my 30,000 connections of zombies that have mostly left the platform, my feed is filled with utter spam, garbage memes, touchy feel-good crap meme videos that have no business bearing, the regurgitation of the same repetitive touchy-feely cutesy animal memes is off the charts. I dare the CEO to come on a live podcast with me and we’ll walk through the garbage on Linkedin and talk about Linkedin issues. I get that its easy to just phone it in under Microsoft, they dont live and die on Linkedin’s income. Its just a department lost in a sea of departments. I’ve about worn my wrist of trying to unfollow or remove connections to people who just mindlessly pollute the platform with non-business related garbage. Since Linkedin has driven away American users and 70% of it is international, I’m flooded with spam connections from all over the world so pervasive that if I see certain countries in my inbox I can tell you EXACTLY what you are trying to sell me when I approve your connection. Website builders 100% will scrape my email and spam the hell out of me, Philippines: VR agents, India: podcast/social platform promoters, English speaking: telephone lead companies, China: overseas company rep scams and more choke my connection request box. I get more Nigerian scam connection requests than any other country. Not to mention the complete parody of lack of quality content with the massive amounts of people selling “How to use Linkedin” services. Sometimes I wonder if the site is just a redundancy of itself since those folks seem to be the only real active users? THE PROBLEM IS SO MANY HIGH-QUALITY PEOPLE HAVE LEFT LINKEDIN FOR MORE ADVANCED AND UPDATED COMPETITIVE PLATFORMS THAT HAVE STUFF LIKE LIVE VIDEO MOST ALL THATS LEFT IS SPAM. This is why it reminds of the last days of Google+, AOL and MySpace as it just rode out the platform’s death without being innovative. LINKEDIN NEEDS BETTER CONTENT THROUGH LIVE VIDEO. It needs to quit ALIENATING high-quality content makers. I have podcast guests that appear on TV on an almost daily basis and MY content isn’t good enough?
Worse since most good business has left to updated modern platforms everyone’s inbox is 95% of this junk with nothing else to balance it out. The problem isn’t so much as spam on the system, the problem is Linkedin in phoning it in since Microsoft’s acquisition has driven away great users and content makers to other platforms so there is no balance. I read that “Content on the LinkedIn feed receives about 9 billion impressions per week, but only 3 million users (out of the more than 500 million) share content on a weekly basis. This means that only about 1% of LinkedIn’s 260 million monthly users share posts, and those 3 million or so users net the 9 billion impressions.” Only 3 million users a year or 2 ago were making weekly content? That’s abysmal and a fail. Meanwhile, Linkedin won’t allow good content makers access to live video?
Don’t even get me started on Microsofts redo of groups, that like mine pretty much decimated what was left of the few groups that were still active. They’re all pretty much Google+ zombie communities now. And just like the last days of Google+/AOL, it is filled with international spam. I’m working to save mine but its hard. For another post, I’ll have to talk about their broken algorithm that drives all the traffic to a small group of users. Linkedin paper-shuffling management needs to be replaced and Linkedin should be sent back to a stand-alone company so it can be innovative again.
I can see why Linkedin thinks live video might make it more spammy and trashy but, number one, whoever is controlling access seems to have little idea what passes for great content. Number 2, live video could save the platform, bring back professionals like me, who have a 40,000 audience outside of Linkedin to pull in and actually increase the 17 minutes a month users spend on the platform with longer video. It would give pros like me a chance to raise the level of quality content to offset the spam. Right now its 90% spam and just driving people away. Most of my social media influencer friends for years have derided Linkedin as a comical joke of a platform and one can see why. Live video won’t kill Linkedin it will actually save it and as an oldie who has a love for the old Linkedin, it could save it from the corporate ineptitude that destroyed a once-great Google+ and others. The only difference was Google+ didn’t get a whole bunch of big companies to buy massive subscriptions for all their employees who rarely seem to use it. I would like to see Linkedin saved as a real social platform but all I see now is the downward spiral of failed platforms, eeking out the last payments as they did at AOL I guess until it runs dry.
I call on the CEO to make live video widely available and find out why this has been dragging on for almost 2 years. I DARE THE CEO TO COME ON MY PODCAST AND DEBATE THIS. Until then I see little reason to pay for it and considering the success of other platforms probably neither should you until they compete like its 2020. This is EMBARRASSING. Linkedin needs to release live video access to everyone, pros that can do it right will advance the platform and create better content. There will be more garbage but it will help users figure out better quality people to follow, bring better content, and eliminate the weeds.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.