After what seems to be forever, LinkedIn has finally decided to launch some major upgrades, including the introduction of a news aggregator, an API for external services, and a way to see people in other social networks.
What’s more impressive is that the lack of anything particularly new over the past year hasn’t stopped LinkedIn from seeing major growth as it has been adding one million new users a month. For whatever reason, people (approximately 16 million) have continued to flock to LinkedIn even though it hasn’t had much in the way of bells and whistles.
I’m one of those 16 million members but, to be honest, I rarely use LinkedIn other than accepting the occasional invitation. For some people, the creation of a virtual business network makes sense but it has never struck me as overly useful. And even if the connections were valuable, there wasn’t anything else on the site that has grabbed by attention enough to spend time on it.
In any event, it appears LinkedIn has finally given itself a makeover. The question now perhaps is how long before the suitors (e.g. News Corp.) come calling.
For more, check out TechCrunch and GigaOm, which suggests LinkedIn’s new features aren’t enough. “LinkedIn isn’t moving forward aggressively enough to unlock the value of their data and services; they need to bring them to the places where professional networking happens”.
2 Comments
After reading the title of this post, I figured there would just be a link to Facebook
I expressed my thoughts on Facebook and LinkedIn a little while back here: http://www.mappingtheweb.com/2007/09/05/facebook-linkedin/
Cheers,
Aidan
http://www.MappingTheWeb.com
I experienced something with LinkedIn that most people might be familiar with. I ignored social networks for as long as I could. Even when all my friends at Berkeley told me how wonderful Facebook was. Some time ago I started using LinkedIn as I saw some interesting people using it. So I gave it a try. I was fascinated. I though (and still think) it’s a great way to find a job, a partner or an employer. Some time later I saw a lot of contacts switching to Facebook. And so, I gave it a try. Again, I was fascinated. With Facebook I could do the same stuff as with LinkedIn, and even more. I could know what was happening in other places of my interest. That’s something I can’t do with LinkedIn, even with their latest beta. I keep my FB page open all day long, nevertheless, I barely open LinkedIn. LinkedIn still needs to work a lot on their features to catch FB. For example, one feature I love from FB is the events app. With it I’m attending many events that my friends are attending. LinkedIn doesn’t has that, even though it’s a major business feature. Conclusion, LinkedIn is *still* way too static.
PS: Mark, can’t find your FB profile with all those Mark Evans there
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[...] saying it doesn’t have value — I think it does, although like my friend Mark Evans I rarely use it. It’s also good to see the network moving forward, even if most of what it is offering seems [...]
[...] give it a read. For further analysis, be sure to read posts from my fellow Canadian tech bloggers Mark Evans and Mathew Ingram. [...]