“The “intensity of mockery” heaped on LinkedIn following the announcement of its $26bn sale to Microsoft makes me actually want to pity the world’s largest professional network.  “LinkedIn is Facebook for ugly people”, tweeted one wag in a typically jaundiced pronouncement. But I have finally learnt “if not to love, then at least to appreciate”, the “galaxy’s most annoying social network”.

“LinkedIn is “a useful database” for professional contacts, and a good alternative to the traditional CV. Admittedly, much of what is written is “twaddle” and often “takes the form of people mindlessly endorsing people they don’t really know for skills they don’t really have”. But with its mixture of random congratulations for “work anniversaries”, inspirational quotes and “interesting” links to deadly dull executive blogs, LinkedIn does one thing very well: it perfectly captures “the spirit of the modern office”. In a world where every social network is trying to be “fun and original”, LinkedIn’s authentic brand of corporate ennui is almost “charming”.  (Sathnam Sanghera, The Times),

I don’t quite understand why LinkedIn is being mocked.  I am no longer in the market for a job, and have no interest in networking to get one, keep one, or find out about people I am about to encounter at a meeting.   But I do get regular emails from LinkedIn, featuring the particulars of my friends and acquaintances who are still working, and it seems to me to be useful.    It provides the backgrounds  of those you are doing business with, or contemplating doing business with.  You have to approach the particulars with a healthy dose of scepticism – no one goes online like this intentionally posing as a shrinking violet. But it is an indication of character, ambition, even plain honesty (I searched for one previous business associate and was amused at the blatant exaggeration and creative imagination used to promote his expertise).  But read between the lines and it is a useful business tool.