I recently came across a rumor that the folks over at LinkedIn are considering opening up their platform. That’s great news in my book and is a long time coming. I’ve had a hard time extracting real value from LinkedIn and think this is a step in the right direction. Most people on LinkedIn connect to each other to increase their number of connections and do little else (myself included). It would be refreshing to see innovation from third-party developers. Here are a few ideas for applications:
- Direct Employer Recruiting & Referrals
We all know the best candidates usually already have jobs and aren’t actively looking. The challenge is to find these passive candidates and create a dialogue with them such that when they are ready to move you are the natural choice. Add a paid referral platform and you have yourself a winner. - Lead Generation
LinkedIn can be extremely useful from a sales perspective. Are you looking for someone who works in Business Development at Microsoft in the NYC area? How about all CEO’s of education software companies in the DC area? A third-party developer could build an enhanced search / data mining application that finds leads based on LinkedIn profiles. - IM / Twitter Integration
Wouldn’t it be great if you were able to IM on LinkedIn or use IM as part of LinkedIn Answers? How about Twitter integration with your LinkedIn profile?
One final thought. Some people are predicting a showdown between FaceBook and LinkedIn. I doubt that will happen. The market is big enough for both of them. Fundamentally, they target different users at different stages in their lives (working professionals vs. college students). There are also investor ties between the two (Hoffman has money in FaceBook and Thiel has money in LinkedIn). I’d bet on collaboration before competition.
