This is likely my last post of the year and being that Christmas is only hours away I’m going to share a little LinkedIn gift with you. Many people are not aware that LinkedIn has a site where they feature internal projects. These not-ready for prime time tools may or may not be relevant but they are interesting.
Once a month LinkedIn celebrates “In Day” where LinkedIn employees are encouraged to research, experiment, and create concepts outside of there normal routine. Adam Nash explained the concept in a post on the LinkedIn blog, “This concept began with an impromptu hackday held over the 2007 holiday break and has now grown to a company-wide event (including an American Idol style panel of judges). Teams are given just five minutes to demo their hack in front of the entire company, and judges get just two minutes to ask questions.”
These are a few of the tools that are highlighted in our Resource Center on the LinkedIn Tools page. Be sure to check out that page to see what other tools are available.
LinkedIn Labs
A sample application to search LinkedIn, built over the new Linkedin Javascript APIs.
My Perspective: Nice search results page. The same results were shown as if searched on LinkedIn, but without the clutter results were displayed in 3 columns by 5 rows. Results include profile photo, tile/tagline, and location. The negative was that there was no navigation to view more than the first 15 results. This will never be a stand alone tool but is likely a way to test out new concepts for LinkedIn’s People Search.
This application shows new members joining LinkedIn from around the world. (requires Google Earth)
My Perspective: An interesting tool but more of a potential time waster than profit maker. Still every now and then you need to take a step back.
Build, save & share beautifully formatted resumes based on your LinkedIn profile.
My Perspective: Should be ready for a call up. This tools does a good job of crafting a nice, clean resume. 11 templates provide the ability to change the look and feel of your resume. I would like them to add a export to .doc or .pages file for further editing. The formatting that you use on your online profile summary doesn’t necessarily translate …spacing, characters, etc.
Integrate LinkedIn directly into Google Chrome. Easy access to your LinkedIn updates, anytime.
My Perspective: Not a bad tool. Easy to add to Chrome and simple to post a status update. Shows updates from others using the tool. Not bad if I happen to be using Chrome and have a sudden thought that I need to share. Otherwise I’m using Hootsuite fed into my status update.
Signal is aimed at making it easy for all professionals to glean the most relevant insights from the never-ending stream of status updates and news.
My Perspective: Ready for the “Show”. Signal helps you filter through status updates by degrees of connection, by company, industry, time posted, location, school, topics etc. A great way to make sense of status updates. Great research tool. Really cannot think of any negatives.
A beautiful visualization of your professional network, built using the LinkedIn Javascript APIs.
My Perspective: This is like the really attractive person you date but realize after 5 minutes that there’s not much beyond the looks. Still nice to look at and fun to mess around with. Great Apple stile visuals. And I like that if you hover over a profile photo you get their latest status update. Click on the photo and get a brief summary of the person
Don’t fall in love too fast with any of these beta tools as some may only live for a few weeks. But in true American Idol spirit some will rise to the top and potentially make it to the big time as a fully supported tool on LinkedIn. For now just play with them to see if they have any impact on your business or your LinkedIn experience.
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