LinkedIn Platform to Be a Closed One
Everyone is jumping on the Facebook "open platform" bandwagon, but LinkedIn can at least say it was among the first to issue copycat-intent statements shortly after the Facebook event. Richard MacManus covered the possibilities offered by a LinkedIn platform here in June. Now LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye has done an interview with the New York Times where he laid out some of the vision for the company's upcoming outreach to outside developers.
It won't be a very warm welcome compared to the Facebook lovefest. Though this should be unsurprising, LinkedIn's platform will require permission from the company before developers can get in on the action. Though Facebook apps do need to be added by Facebook to the app directory, a quick look through there shows that the bar is low enough that it may as well be open to all.
I've talked to many companies holding out for a future opportunity to score real estate on LinkedIn profile pages. Nye says in this interview that the average income of a LinkedIn user is $140k per year - it's a real injustice that such high-quality human beings won't have easy access to all our widgets.
LinkedIn will focus its platform on letting developers tie LinkedIn functionality to outside services (Salesforce is the example given, surprise surprise) and to adding buttoned-up business functionality to LinkedIn itself.
It's Not a Social Network!
Nye also told the Times that LinkedIn doesn't consider itself a social network, either. That's funny, that's what Facebook loudly insisted on to its developers pre-platform launch, too. They weren't allowed to mention MySpace or the phrase social networking in their PR. Facebook is a social utility - they insisted. That was an eye-roller at the time and sounds even sillier now.
We'll see what the LinkedIn platform looks like when the rubber finally hits the road, but when it happens - don't quit your day job to be a LinkedIn app developer.
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Linkedin is starting to devoting to elites but not plebeians; this is what Dan Nye really wanted to express but was shy to say it directly.
Linkedin may survive with this policy. But Facebook will become a legend if it sticks to its manifesto.
-- Yihong
Posted by: Yihong Ding | October 12, 2007 5:23 PM
Facebooks primary mode of interaction is social, its a social network. Linkedin's primary, and more or less only, mode of interaction is business, its a business network, not a social network.
I think this is the right strategy for Linkedin. I think they will erode their value proposition if they took their focus off of being a business utility.
There has been quite a movement of business users onto Facebook this year but I am finding that mixing of business and social networks awkward and clumsy. I wonder if others feel the same?
Right now I dont see that Linkedin feels under too much pressure to open up, that would take a bold management decision. I wonder where the outside pressure would come from, business network built on top of Facebok? Xing, Ecademy etc opening their systems? Linkedin Facebook application?
Posted by: Ian Wilson | October 12, 2007 6:18 PM
Well, I did quit my day job to be a Facebook app developer and it seems to be working out fine so far.
I'm looking forward to seeing the Linked In platform. If it's as good as Facebook's then I can see lots of clients wanting their apps to run on Linked In.
I agree mixing business with pleasure a la facebook is a bit clumsy but I don't think it's a show stopper.
Currently though there's still really only one show in town and that's facebook's platform.
Posted by: Toby Beresford | October 13, 2007 8:44 AM
Being a little bit open sounds suspiciously like being a little bit pregnant. Although LinkedIn is clearly a social networking service I can't really blame Nye for trying to spin it as something else. The phrase "social networking" is so overused as to be meaningless.
Posted by: Con von Hoffman | October 16, 2007 7:36 AM