A colleague of mine raised the question about how much little actual benefit he was getting from the time he spent on LinkedIn. 

I myself don't use LinkedIn very frequently any more. I do use it for people research to identify contact information and to research about people and company experience. 

I don't utilize it as a direct contact method of communication. When I do try to use it, there is usually no response or what comes back is basically non-responsive.

I get emails every few days telling me about people who search on my name. So what. When you drill down to see who those people are, you see very little critical, relevant and useful business intelligence.

I see the notifications in my Chrome extension but when i go to look at them, they tend to be a waste of time and offer very little value added. 

I participate in a few groups but the quality of the conversations has turned dismal. If people post questions, they get bombarded by people with pitches for their services instead of getting good advice. 

The problem I experience is that the posts are rarely helpful. They just sell product and services. They don't solve problems and inspire. They tease and sell, rather than educate and help. 

I'm not the only one who sees this happening. 

Here's a Presari search on Is LinkedIn becoming Useless?  

Presari is like a TV remote control for search engines. You just click on the source you want and voila you can find all the relevant news and media about any topic instantly. By being selective you can bypass the ads and SEP results and focus quickly on the best sources, people and organizations.

You can do the Google Bing side by side comparison. You can also slice and dice the results using the tools to focus the results on the articles, videos, and images. You can also then use the slice tool to focus on the most current results by date.

You can also then flip channels to see what people are saying on social media like Facebook and Twitter and even search the articles and conversations on LinkedIn. And if you know how and have a content-filled social media toolbox ready, (text, headlines, photos, links and hashtags) you can interact directly.

And you can then search the news media. Google News and Bing News get you to the articles and more. Even some of the major media get you to useful articles and features. If you open up a second Presari window while you are reading you can grab the journalist or experts name and drill down quickly to their contact information and quickly contact them.

Presari can be used for research and for identifying, targeting and instantly deploying the 3 C’s – the best content, connections, and communications - in real time. It is a very different type of search tool than Google or Bing in that by giving people choice, they get to bypass the ads and marketing and concentrate on finding better information fast.  it's a new direct marketing option that allows you to quickly contact the right people with the intellectual candy needed to trigger desirable actions and results.

Presari is an elearning – multi-purpose super tool I created to maximize what people receive from the time they spend online. 

So here's another Presari search on Making the Most of LinkedIn.