LinkedIn Revamps Home Page, Announces Closed API
Posted by Sebastien on the 2007/12/10 at 01:20
in API, LinkedIn, Social Media, Social networks - 1 Comment »
Best summary is on Read/WriteWeb:
To summarize: today LinkedIn announced some cool new features and made more promises about what will be a closed platform for select 3rd party partners, built on top of an API of questionable worth and targeted at business users with a history of disinterest in social applications. It’s not ready yet. Did we mention that the users will be people with money, though? I imagine that for that reason if nothing else, widget developers will remain very interested. I’d like to see LinkedIn do something better than this, though.
What it means: although the announcement is still a bit “vaporware-ish”, I think there is tremendous potential in tapping into the LinkedIn user crowd. If developers can build useful B2B-oriented apps, strong adoption could follow. But LinkedIn needs to open up the API to a larger developer base before it happens. Another developing story to keep on your radar screen but no short-term action.
LinkedIn has a lot of work to do to maintain its position in the marketplace and not subside to the realm of irrelevance. Recent comScore numbers show LinkedIn in a distant 15th place for social netwroking sites. It is not sufficient to borrow strategies from other platforms and trust that opening APIs will be sufficient to shore up a tenuous model and value proposition. They should revisit some fundementals instead of wallowing in recycled strategies.