Gose Stories

As a huge fan of LinkedIn, this is great news for those of us who are LI junkies.

This morning, at the BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco, I have the great pleasure of announcing one of our most important mobile efforts for 2009: the launch of LinkedIn for BlackBerry.  Needless to say, this launch has been hotly anticipated by the millions of LinkedIn members who make the BlackBerry their mobile business platform of choice.

LinkedIn for BlackBerry: Home

Imagine walking into any interview, any customer engagement or client meeting with the ability to look up the details on over 50 million professionals worldwide, in real-time.  Soon this will be a reality, as this application will bring the powerful capabilities of LinkedIn to your BlackBerry.

LinkedIn for BlackBerry: Search

LinkedIn for BlackBerry: Profile

We’ve worked hard to develop an application that takes advantage of the unique capabilities of the BlackBerry platform.  LinkedIn for BlackBerry will also include deep integration with the native Messages, Contacts & Calendar applications on the BlackBerry platform.  For example, here is an early screenshot of the native BlackBerry Messages application, with LinkedIn invitations and one-to-one messages integrated into the inbox:

LinkedIn for BlackBerry: Messages

LinkedIn for BlackBerry will join our existing suite of mobile products by the end of this year, marking the next step in our continuing effort to bring LinkedIn to wherever you work.  This is just the beginning – expect continued enhancements and expansions of the LinkedIn mobile platform in 2010.

See you at the BlackBerry Developer Conference 2009. To stay updated on BlackBerry developments, join the LinkedIn for BlackBerry Group!

It's about time...

A couple days ago, we launched several new features aimed at enhancing the professional conversation in LinkedIn groups. We call one of those features “following”.

Following makes it easier for you to see contributions made by your connections and other people you value within your groups. To get you started, you’re already following all of your connections and they’re following you. But it doesn’t stop with your connections: to follow someone who is not a connection, just click “Follow Their Name” under their name on a discussion page or on the Member page in your group.

Now when you go to your My Groups page, you’ll see updates about what the specific people you’re following have contributed to the groups you share. Updates from the people you’re following (and your updates to the people who are following you) also appear on the Overview page of each group you share. All of this makes it faster and easier to interact with your own personal “group within the group.”

For more information about Following, check out our FAQ.

Go ahead, check out your groups and start following!

I am a huge fan of what LinkedIn could do, but the site's functionality hasn't kept up with other sites. I think this is a solid improvement and certainly gives hardcore users another valuable feature.

Facebook is the primary social network on which consumer-focused companies maintain one or more profiles, cited by 83 percent of respondents compared with 45 percent for Twitter. Business-to-business companies maintain a presence on both social sites with 77 percent maintaining a profile on Facebook and 73 percent on Twitter.

Among those using social media for business purposes in their jobs, 62 percent visit company or brand profiles on social networking sites and 55 percent search for business information on these sites.

It's interesting that a higher percentage of B2B companies have a Twitter profile, compared to B2C companies. I would have flip-flopped the two.

LinkedIn had a chance to be THE place for businesses but just simply dropped the ball. That's my "expert" evaluation.