apreet vs LinkedIn: staying informed online, and meeting in person

Quick answer. apreet and LinkedIn solve different problems. LinkedIn is the online professional graph, built for discovering, following, and staying informed about people at scale. apreet overlays your calendar against your address book to tell you which of the people you already know will be in the city you are traveling to, so you can meet in person. One is about feeds, the other is about face time. They complement each other.

What LinkedIn is best at

LinkedIn is the canonical online professional network, and it is very good at what it does. It holds your public profile and your work history, it surfaces a feed of industry news and updates from people you follow, and it powers a large share of professional recruiting and hiring. If you want to be discoverable, follow a former colleague who has moved companies, share a piece of writing, or keep a loose pulse on a wide circle without speaking to anyone directly, LinkedIn is the right tool. Its strength is breadth: staying informed about many people, at scale, online.

What apreet is best at

apreet is not a feed and not a public profile. In one sentence: apreet reads the date and location of your trips from your calendar and overlays them against the contacts in your address book, so you see who you can meet in person before you arrive. You can read the full mechanism on how apreet works. Its strength is depth and timing: taking relationships you already have and converting a passing trip into a real, in-person meeting. There is no scrolling, no strangers, and no public map of where you are.

Use them together

The honest framing is not apreet against LinkedIn. It is LinkedIn to stay aware of your wider network online, and apreet to turn the people you already know into meetings when your travel makes it possible. LinkedIn keeps the relationship warm at a distance. apreet closes the distance. Used together, you stay informed about many people and you actually sit down with the ones whose city you happen to be in.

Is apreet a LinkedIn alternative?

Not really. apreet and LinkedIn solve different problems. LinkedIn is an online professional network for profiles, content, and recruiting, where you stay loosely informed about many people at scale. apreet turns the contacts you already have into in-person meetings while you travel, by overlaying your calendar against your address book. apreet replaces missed coffees, not your LinkedIn account.

Can I use apreet and LinkedIn together?

Yes, and most people will. LinkedIn keeps you informed about your wider network online. apreet then takes the people you already know and tells you which of them will be in the city you are traveling to, so you can meet face to face. One keeps the relationship warm online, the other turns it into a meeting in person.

How is apreet different from LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is built around an online feed and a public profile graph that helps you discover and follow people at scale. apreet is built around your private calendar and address book. It does not have a feed, does not show you to strangers, and uses only the date and location of your trips to surface who you can meet in person. The output is a short list of real meetings, not a stream of posts.