Graywings I agree with you. I am on LinkedIn and do not accept invitations to link unless I know and respect the inviter. You can decline or ignore the invitation-if you do this the reminders about the invites stop. I think it does become a numbers game for some people, I don't want to play.

IMO your LinkedIN network is of greatest value if you participate on the forums on LinkedIN. I admin one of the forums called Color & Paint Professionals - International which is a "closed" group but I let anyone who asks in; it's closed just so I can review profiles before clicking them in. Also admin the IACC/NA group which is a totally closed group exclusively members only.

So while I do have connections from in real-life in my network, there are also the folks I know via the LI and other online forums and groups.

It's useful because my connection's activities are displayed on my main LI front page feed so I can keep track of what's going on within my entire network at any time on one page. See something interesting, I can follow them on to their facebook page, their Twitter or to the forum(s) where they are posting on LI.

Once you peel into it, you see how LI organizes your connections by their profession and you are then able to focus and channel what you want to actually *do*, how you want to engage and/or follow your entire network.

For example, all the color trend people I'm connected with are members of two or three core LI Forums 100% focused on trends so I can find them there and get quick updates.

Lots of other ways you can use LI, that's just one example. From a social media perspective, LI, is one of THE most powerful sand boxes to play in.

The reason you don't know a lot of these people from Adam is because when they sign up, Linkeden goes in a pulls all the email addresses that have been associated with that email address and invites them. I seldom erase any emails from one address I have and I often get requests from people who emailed me once years ago.

I'm not sure if they do it automatically or if the person signing up misreads the permission request, but like all the other networking sites, Linkeden can be very invasive.

Thank you, lukkiirish, that may explain what is happening with me, especially if the other person uses gmail.

My gmail account adds everyone I have ever exchanged e-mails with to a Contacts list. If I signed on to LinkedIN, hundreds of people who don't remember me would get an invitation.

Funcolors, thanks for your explanation as well. I didn't realize there were other aspects to LinkedIN.

I use it all the time--to track down someone who can help me in my work or supply a referral. As a freelancer, I'm always looking for materials my clients may need, etc.

Your welcome, glad it helped. As you can see by the experiences both Funcolors and Ideefixe have shared, these networking sites can be great tools, but I have serious concerns when it comes to privacy issues.