Difference between LinkedIn.com, Spoke.com and Jigsaw.com
As the world is reaching new business heights, the need of the moment to take these real world business opportunities to the virtual world has been realized by many business oriented websites. LinkedIn, Spoke and Jigsaw are among the hottest websites of the kind which help their users by providing them with great opportunities on their professional fronts. These websites have brought about a revolution in the business industry by creating online hubs of enormous business data and opportunities. These three websites differ in their approach to achieve the same target!
What They Do
LinkedIn is a business centric social networking website which keeps you in touch with your professional contacts. It has over 65 million registered users as of now and the number is increasing at the rate of 1 new registration every second! Presently the website is available in 6 different languages. Spoke is also a professional networking website however it is also a business directory with information from different resources such as public and private databases and members upload. It has over 60 million users with over 2.3 million companies’ databases. Jigsaw is an online business directory which at present hosts over 21,000,000 business cards and 3,900,000 companies on its platform. Every virtual business card on Jigsaw has valuable contact information such as name, title, phone number, an email id and company’s address. This card helps to bypass the gatekeepers and reach directly the influencial people and decision makers – as the website explains.
How does it all work?
LinkedIn works in a similar fashion as that of any social networking website. A user maintains a contact list of the people he knows and trusts for Business. These contacts are referred to as ‘connections’. The users can find jobs and other opportunities in two levels of depth in their connections, i.e. they can directly find it in their connections or to connections of connections (second degree connections), or connections of second degree connections (third degree connections). This chained introduction is the reason behind the success of LinkedIn. Spoke replaces the term connections with ‘coworkers’ and operates in a similar manner as does the LinkedIn. It also allows users to invite new coworkers. Jigsaw operates in a manner different from spoke and LinkedIn. It deals with the virtual business cards which can be viewed completely by its members in exchange of the points they earn by providing the valid contact info of their professional contacts.
Controversies
The question of credibility of the information provided by Jigsaw and Spoke has always invited a few controversies. There have been complaints regarding the inaccurate and misleading information on these two websites. Moreover Jigsaw policy of information insertion in its database without the permission of the person who is being listed has raised privacy concerns.
Summary
- LinkedIn is a business oriented social networking website.
- Jigsaw is an online business directory.
- Spoke has the features of both a business centric social networking website as well as an online business directory.
