WebRev Blog

While I've written previously that you cannot (and probably never will be able to) see who is viewing your profile on Facebook (the apps that promise show you this information are scams and spams), I just discovered today that you CAN see who is viewing your profile on the professional networking site, LinkedIN.

Yes, seriously.

It's actually a feature of the site (not an app), and if anyone has viewed your profile in the last 90 days, you'll see the option in the lower right-hand column of your profile page, under "Who's Viewed Your Profile."

You'll have to at least temporarily change your settings to let other see when you have viewed their profile (you can always change it back) to view the stats, but it's quite interesting.  Because this network is geared more toward professional networking and career development, this is less of a feature to figure out who's "stalking" you (because this isn't where stalkers are likely to be doing that), and more of a feature to figure out how much interest you are drawing from whichever network you are trying to generate interest in.

From the "about page" on this feature:

There are three different ways we show info on who's viewed your profile, based on the profile viewer's privacy settings:

It's very interesting.  I had more people checking out my professional profile than I would have imagined, considering I have not been active on LinkedIN for awhile.  It actually inspired me to make some updates. 

Go ahead - check it out - see who's viewing your profile!

Do you notice anything about the home pages of two of the top social networks?  The web is all a-Twitter this week about the fact that the new home page of Twitter looks so much like the home page of Facebook.  This is probably some of the biggest news of this kind since 2008 when Facebook updated its home page to look more like Twitter at the time.

The interesting part of this is that Twitter has moved away from its old look, which was more like the current Google.com and LinkedIn.com home pages.  Why is this significant?  Because Facebook and Twitter are trying to distiguish themselves (either separately or perhaps together?) as the leaders in the industry.  Their competition at the moment is Google, and we'll know who won when Google does its next home page update.

It also brings us to another point that is good for all webmasters and designers to remember:  While you want your home page to reflect your or your company's uniqueness, you also want new readers to instantly feel comfortable with your site. If a sign-in process is required, you don't want that sign-in process to be confusing.  You don't want them to have to search around for a "enter site" button to get past your flash page (most won't - they don't have time, and they'll just move on).  You want your "about" and "contact" information to be EXTREMELY easy to find.  Basically, you want your readers to instantly feel "comfortable" with your site, and to focus on your content, rather than "searching" for your content.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.