LinkedIn: Yes to a profile photo, no to a superpoke

According to Mashable, from tomorrow you will be able to add a photo to your profile page on LinkedIn. Whilst I agree that it is a good idea, as it helps with the identification of people, I don't agree with Mashable's conclusion that:

It’s clearly a move that aims to keep up with Facebook, which increasingly looks set to steal LinkedIn’s audience.

Facebook and LinkedIn are extremely different animals, appealing to very different markets. Whilst there is a big overlap between the two social networks in the types of users, their purposes are very different, and the same user on the different networks will use them in very different ways and for different purposes.

Whilst Facebook has shown some innovative ideas that other social networks want to incorporate, such as the developer platform, this is not necessarily the same as the other social networks wanting to be Facebook. After all, it would be a very odd 'potential Facebook user' who decided to stay with LinkedIn purely due to the addition of a profile picture.

It would be nice if sometimes the web could talk about social networks without discussing Facebook, and mobile phones without discussing iPhones.