I signed up for LinkedIn way back in July of 2008. Since then, I’ve periodically updated my profile, but – admittedly – haven’t used it a lot. I’ve connected with plenty of people, and during spats of unemployment I used it as another place to look for jobs. And I do see some value in using the site, although more for corporate branding than regular interaction.

LinkedIn’s advantage over other social networking sites is its culture of professionalism. There’s a strange juxtaposition using a corporate Facebook page – trying to present a professional brand the same place people take quizzes about what Disney princess they are. The same can be said for Twitter, which is used to share minutiae, profundity, and everything in between.

LinkedIn, however, doesn’t really cater to that type of discussion – although it’s certainly tried. About a year ago (although I could be totally off on that; I only remember it about a year ago) LinkedIn began offering applications for users. They could connect their Twitter account, blogs, and other networks all from their LinkedIn account. There didn’t seem to be any real purpose in this, especially since I wouldn’t want any potential employer to see the kind of stuff I tweet about.

This, in my experience, is the huge downside to LinkedIn; they don’t really know what they are. They don’t seem to be entirely sure what service they’re offering to their users, but instead just seem to be piggybacking off other current trends.

I bring up all of this because LinkedIn is preparing to IPO. They’ve been able to generate a huge amount of buzz, and the expected initial price of their stock has risen significantly over the past year.

Now, I don’t know much of anything about the stock market or IPO or stuff like that, but it seems odd to me that people are willing to invest so much into something that may or may not pan out.