Seizing on the
idea that professionals want to keep abreast of news in their businesses,
LinkedIn March 10 launched a social news service that funnels relevant news
users are sharing via the professional social network and Twitter.
LinkedIn Today
aggregates news shared by LinkedIn members' colleagues and other connections,
top stories from a certain industry or field in which a member works or has
indicated interest, and finally, trending news across several market sectors.
The move comes
six weeks after LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering, aimed at
raising at least $175 million in stock.
LinkedIn,
which has 90 million users, makes money from advertising, premium subscriptions
and software services professional recruiters use to hire new employees.
LinkedIn Today is designed to boost user engagement, ensuring more ads are
surfaced in front of the site's users.
LinkedIn Today's recommendation algorithm gleans
content from user profiles, as well as what connections users are following.
The news stories are rendered on LinkedIn users' front page, similar to the
way news content appears on Yahoo and other news portals.
Members can
see who has shared a headline via LinkedIn or Twitter, as well as what people
are saying about it on the social network and microblog service.
Users can
mouse over a headline and see a number pop out, denoting how many times the
link has been shared.
Clicking on
that number shows who from LinkedIn and/or Twitter shared that link. People may
refine their searches for those who tweeted by company, industry (LinkedIn
covers 22 sectors) and location.
"Let's
say you work in the Internet industry, and sell to customers in the health care
industry," said Liz Reaves Walker, senior product manager at LinkedIn.
"With LinkedIn Today, you can follow all of the industries that you care
about—Internet, staffing and recruiting, and health care—and then come to one
place to get all of your news."
LinkedIn Today
users will also receive a single weekly e-mail of top industry headlines from
sectors members follow.
LinkedIn Today
was built from technology it gained from its purchase of recommendation engine mSpoke. The
service is available via a Web browser on the desktop and the LinkedIn iPhone
application.
Users can
navigate to www.linkedin.com/today
in their Web browser to sample the service, or go to the main menu and click
News to access the site. LinkedIn is "ramping up entry points on the
homepage and in the navigation" to make it easier to access.
GigaOm has the
best analysis of LinkedIn Today's pros and cons,
including why the service won't engender more user engagement.
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