LinkedIn Opening Platform
Posted by Nick O'Neill on June 24th, 2007 2:01 PM
Last night I received a tip: LinkedIn is considering opening their platform to developers. If true, this would be huge news. While a bit skeptical, there are a few reasons that this could actually be taking place. Since Facebook opened their platform almost a month ago, I have been receiving the majority of my professional contact requests through Facebook and not LinkedIn. I have read others around the blogosphere that are experiencing the same phenomenon. As this occurs, LinkedIn is going to have to take some sort of action that keeps them in the game. This may be it. Enabling developers to build applications for their network would be huge, but they would also have to be cautious when launching a developer platform. LinkedIn is known for its absence of distractions within profiles. If they opened their platform, individuals’ profiles could rapidly become cluttered with excess features. As a result LinkedIn would need an effective application filtering process that only allows value-added applications to their platform. While this is currently an unverified source, it makes a lot of sense.
Additionally, I’ve been thinking more about how Facebook could really put the nail in LinkedIn’s coffin. Facebook currently offers the ability to control how much of your profile individual friends can view. Some friends can only view my limited profile, while others can view everything about me. While I have yet to take advantage of this feature, taking it one step further could be the end of LinkedIn. If Facebook allowed users to differentiate between their professional and social relationships and control what parts of their profile are visible based on relationship type, it would be the end of most social networks. There would no longer be the need for spreading your relationships across multiple social networks since you can control all of them from one place. Additionally, using the existing platform someone could already develop an application that provides alternative profiles for users. While this won’t be as effective as Facebook developing it them self, it would be a step in the right direction.
LinkedIn is still growing like gang busters (adding over 180,000 users per day on top of an existing user base of 11 million) and they are going to have to take immediate action to secure them self as the leader in business networking. Weeks ago, LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye claimed that they will “own business networking.” Such confidence could prove disastrous if Facebook heeds my advice to allow users to differentiate between professional and social relationships. Perhaps Nye’s confidence was based on the fact that he knows LinkedIn has something up their sleeve. That something may just be opening up their platform. According to CNN LinkedIn may even choose to become integrated with Facebook.
Wouldn’t it at least be smart, then, for LinkedIn to deploy itself as an application on Facebook, given Facebook’s new open API strategy? Quite possibly, said Nye who pointed out that Hoffman was an early investor in Facebook, and that Facebook backer Peter Thiel also has money in LinkedIn. “We know each other well,” said Nye. “We like each other.”
The bottom line is that a battle has been started between the two networks (both Valleywag and Scoble have commented on this) and the opening of LinkedIn’s platform may only be retaliatory attack to Facebook’s decision to open up. This will surely be a good fight.
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June 24th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
[…] Nick O’Neill also posts on this topic, and speculates on Facebook adding a professional dimension to its service to compete with Facebook. […]
June 24th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
I posted on this over at my zdnet blog a week or so ago. I think LinkedIn needs to do something to add more value for non-paying users.
June 24th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
While this is an interesting development, should I be considered “old school” if I like my social networks separate? I love how clean Linkedin is…and don’t know that I’d want to muddy it with additional apps. Facebook would have to enable multiple profiles within an account in order to satisfy the need to tailor profile data to specific sub audiences. For example, I’d want my friends to see a certain picture of me, and have access to my personal cellphone, while I’d like my professional contacts to see a different picture and number etc. That’s certainly possible to do, but is it what we want facebook to be?
June 24th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
A Few Facebook (and LinkedIn) Thoughts…
I’ve been mulling around a post on Facebook for a day or so. I signed up for Facebook sometime this past winter, but didn’t really do much of anything with my account there until April, when……
June 24th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
LinkedIn and FaceBook are in competition? I’ve never felt that, because they do two totally different things. Most people in my FaceBook would never be friended on LinkedIn, and vice versa.. one’s for hard core “networking” and business stuff, and the other are acquaintances, friends, people I used to know at school, etc.
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June 25th, 2007 at 6:03 am
The most popular Facebook app by far is Top Friends which allows users to select a small number of their best friends to display separately form their other friends. In essence, Top Friends allows users to change the nature of their relationships/friendships with other users.
Facebook taking that concept - different kinds of relationships: social, best friends, professional, etc - to the next level as you suggest in your post would make a lot of sense. This would make Facebook a lot more useful to professionals and would put LinkedIn and perhaps other vertical social networks under pressure, depending on how it’s implemented.
What’s more is that Facebook users (well, at least the 6,758,905 Top Friends users and the many users who maintain both Facebook and LinkedIn profiles) are no doubt ready to embrace such a change.
June 25th, 2007 at 6:19 am
Linkedin macht es Facebook nach: Gesamtsystem statt Nischenanwendung…
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June 25th, 2007 at 7:02 am
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June 25th, 2007 at 8:12 am
LinkedIn Opening Platform…
This story has been submitted to Stirrdup. If it can generate enough interest, it will make it to the main page….
June 25th, 2007 at 8:28 am
I wonder if other social networks will soon follow.
June 25th, 2007 at 8:29 am
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June 25th, 2007 at 10:23 am
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June 25th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
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June 29th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Social vs Professional…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t want everyone I know to know everyone else that I know.
It’s like when you split up from someone and you suddenly lose a group of friends because they were better friends with y…
July 25th, 2007 at 9:31 am
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September 29th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
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