It's hard to judge what's more mindnumbing -- the emails from LinkedIn reminding you of your "work anniversary" or having to endure other people's boring tweets about them ("No, LinkedIn, a work anniversary is not a thing"). Either way, they are the cause of many an invisible eye roll or inward yawn.
The good news is that LinkedIn has realised that while you find its service useful, you also find its communications kind of annoying. As such it is cutting the number of emails it sends you by around 40 percent.
For every person that has moaned about LinkedIn either online or to people around them, or just sighed wearily when they receive yet another, "Your invitation is still waiting!" email, it seems another has complained directly to the company itself -- and it's paid off. "Many of you have told us that you receive too many emails from LinkedIn. We're also not immune to the late night talk show host jokes. We get it," writes LinkedIn with a smidge of self pity.
The company is now aiming to make sure its email communications are "more infrequent" and "more relevant". Already it is paying dividends -- LinkedIn has seen members' complaints cut in half since it initiated the strategy.
If you are very important or exciting and therefore get lots of requests to connect on LinkedIn, you will now receive a weekly digest of invitations rather than receiving an individual email about each person who wants to network with you. Upgrades from groups you are a member of will now also be aggregated into a single email.
LinkedIn also seeks to remind users that they control which emails they receive and which they don't by using their settings. It might be news to some LinkedIn whingers, but it turns out they could have just turned notifications off themselves all along.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK