In my last post covering the evolution of Linkedin, I talked about a whole slew of nifty features that are part of Linkedin 2.0. The Linkedin team has been working hard, working behind the scenes in bringing new functionality to the way you and I use Linkedin. The latest of these subtle features is the ability to share industry news with your colleagues among others. Now, that's what I call internal social media for the office!
1-2 I Shared My News
Previously, users within one's network may have possibly seen the same news articles, but with the new sharing feature, you can actively promote stories of interest to individuals within your network. This feature is perfect for sharing news with individuals that may not within the same organization, but in a similar niche or industry. This saves the trouble of having to look for email id's and makes Linkedin's contacts quite the handy little black book.
Related Profiles being Viewed
In addition to the nifty feature showing those that have 'viewed your profile', the Linkedin team has recently added a feature to view related profiles to the one currently being exhibited. For example, a quick view of Rand Fishkin's profile shows the following related individuals
As you can probably tell, this feature is a gateway to discovering new professionals and enhancing your ability to build your network. In fact, this feature is so darn useful, you might just find an old colleague that you didn't even know was on Linkedin.
Rumour has it that Linkedin isn't stopping here with increasing its 'collective intelligence' features, and that something very cool is in store in the months to come.
Carry Your Linkedin Portfolio With You Socially
Most heavy Linkedin users (myself included) know that it takes a fair bit of time and dedication to set up the ultimate profile. That said, it is quite tedious to duplicate your effort into creating a similar profile on other such professional networking sites that are cropping up for example. Instead of making their data structure proprietary, Linkedin has chosen to conform to various microformats, making it easy to import and export your data. Here's what they had to say:
At LinkedIn, we've always believed that users should own and control their data. And we've walked the walk by offering one-click export of your connections to .csv and .vcf since 2004; using microformats since 2006 to mark up your contacts with XFN + hCard and service provider recommendations with hReview; and in early 2007 we released the first major hResume implementation. It's not just open formats either. Last year we started building APIs and a developer platformOpenSocial applications, which will soon include support for OpenSocial applications.
Linkedin is Buzzing
Linkedin is doing all the right things in growing and enhancing the quality of its services. I am a hardcore Linkedin evangelist, and I'm sure you'll love it too, if you're not using it to its full potential already. Add me to your network, and read up on some authoritative blog posts on the network's newest developments.
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