Hot on the heels of MySpace Apps launching a couple months ago, Social Media applications are fast becoming the norm. The LinkedIn applications look like they are more focused and controlled than the direction MySpace and Facebook have gone. At launch yesterday, these Applications were available on LinkedIn:
- Reading List (Amazon). Extends your person profile by sharing your reading list.
- Box.net Files (Box.net). Share important files.
- Company Buzz (LinkedIN). Provides a feed of Twitter activity on your company.
- Google Presentation (Google). Share PowerPoint files.
- Huddle Workspaces (Huddle.net). Secure online workspaces for collaborating with connections.
- WordPress (WordPress). Synchronize your blog with your LinkedIN profile.
- BlogLink (Six Apart). Synchronize your blog with your LinkedIN profile.
- SlideShare Presentations (SlideShare). Check out presentations from your connections.
- My Travel (Tripit). See where your connections are traveling.
- LinkedIn Polls. While in the video below, it is not currently available on the site. Not sure what the story is here.
So initially they have 3 apps to feed content to your profile, 4 sharing apps (slideshows, books, files), a travel log, and an online workspace app. The least interesting to me is the travel log, but I can see a big future for all these directions.
I tested out the Reading List and WordPress apps first and found it to be a very seamless process with them both. I had the Stratius Blog feeding into my LinkedIn profile in less than a few seconds. Follow the link to see for yourself, or view the screen grab below of how it integrates into your profile. Very clean, very simple.
The Reading List app is pretty cool. Once it starts to get populated I can see it being really interesting to watch what your connections are reading and it could be a very powerful book promotion tool if the right person lists your book. Another blog app, BlogLink allows you to feed/read all the most recent posts from any blogs listed on your connections’ profiles. It automatically follows these blog links and populates the RSS, without them having to use the app as well.
Apps on Facebook, MySpace and other Social Networks are great fun, but on LinkedIn we are talking pure business and money. And this will mean money for LinkedIn as well. With all this new content, the increased time spent on the site alone will be a huge boon. More people will begin to use their LinkedIn profile as a portal into the business world instead of just an occasional tool. I expect this to also motivate some unique technologies, that may have gone undeveloped on other networks.
Here is the Youtube video from LinkedIn announcing the launch.
What applications or companies would you like to see added on to the above list?
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