ReadWriteWeb

Giant resume directory LinkedIn has launched a new site to host its technology experiments, called LinkedIn Labs, the company announced today. At launch, Labs contains four experimental products. One is good, another in closed beta still, the third a disappointment and the fourth will be of little interest to anyone who doesn't work for the company itself.

In other words, this incredible site, so full of potential for analysis and technology that adds value to the lives of users, has fallen short of that potential again. Time and time again LinkedIn disappoints in two ways: it fails to cut to the chase and tell you who has a new job and it insists on trying to be more like Twitter than it ought to be. It's really a shame, a LinkedIn Labs could be fantastic. You should go try to get into the beta of LinkedIn Signal though, before the 500 invites the company extended today expire. That's worth checking out.

LinkedIn has launched a tool aimed at current college students that the company says will provide students with "unique, data-driven insights to help them build their careers." LinkedIn's Career Explorer is a collaborative effort between the professional network and professional services and accountancy firm PwC.

Career Explorer aims to help students chart their potential career paths and to help them build a professional network pre-graduation. Based on data aggregated from LinkedIn's 80 million members, Career Explorer will map out the paths that others in similar fields have taken. It will also offer resources including relevant job opportunities, salary information, and educational and experience required in certain industries or fields.

Depending on where you are in the world and what profession you are in, Windows Live Messenger is either a professional tool you use every day to keep up with your colleagues or something only teenagers would use. Starting today, Messenger - which Microsoft is already positioning as a social networking client - will become more appealing to professionals, as Microsoft is introducing a deep integration with LinkedIn in the U.S. Thanks to this integration, Messenger users will not just be able to send status updates to LinkedIn and view your colleagues updates, but your Messenger and Hotmail contacts will also be kept in sync across the Windows Live and LinkedIn platforms.

Looking for a job? Need to fill a position? ResumeSponge, a Web app that enables professionals to build online profiles and connect with would-be employers just launched into beta and its creators want to help.

The fledgling site, which is free to use, is notably similar to LinkedIn, but with a few extra bells and whistles.

Gist.com is a database of dynamic, information-rich user profiles that can be accessed via the Web or inside your email or other communication-management tool, or on your mobile device.

The database is populated with the people who have signed up for Gist's public beta and their contacts. There are 100 million profiles of people and companies behind Gist's wall, collected over about a year. Now, Gist wants users to "claim" their profiles by updating their own data (and potentially making some information public).

There comes a time in the evolution of successful startups where they make the move from garages, apartments and coffee shops into actual office space. Some even take this opportunity to change cities, but finding decent office space isn't as easy as finding an apartment or a bedroom to rent on Craigslist.

Rofo, a site offering commercial real estate listings, tries to solve this problem by simplifying connections between smaller landlords and real estate brokers. With a new LinkedIn application launching today from Rofo, young companies can track local deals and find the best brokers for their needs.

SimplyHired.com, a job search site that aggregates job board postings and makes them searchable via one interface, is launching a new feature: Facebook integration. With the added opt-in functionality, you can see if any of your Facebook friends work at a particular company and you can pull a list of all the companies where your friends are employed.

And no, the headline is not as misleading as you think - engineers from Facebook actually helped SimplyHired build this feature in the hopes that it will showcase the power of the social network's new Open Graph platform and the usefulness it can provide when properly implemented.

Professional social LinkedIn launched a new feature today that has tons of promise: the ability to follow new hires, departures, job postings and more at particular companies. It's pretty awesome to have a newsfeed of company updates across your sector of interest, as an employment-o-phile (I love hearing about people's jobs) this seems like a feature I'd really enjoy.

Unfortunately, the implementation is a big disappointment. The condescending, pageview hungry attitude that colors so much of what LinkedIn does is all over this new feature as well. I've recorded a short screencast tour of the feature below. Let me know if this drives you as nuts as it does me.

Viadeo, the social network for business, has added five applications built on Google's OpenSocial platform. These apps are Twitter, YouTube, PollDaddy, a doc sharer called Ayos iShare and Google Presentation.

iShare will allow users to upload any file up to 100 MB and post it for download on their account. The Twitter app will allow a user to post their Tweet automatically on their Viadeo page. The Google Presentation function will allow them to convert Powerpoint presentations to Google and share them.

A few weeks ago we brought you a brief list of social networks for meeting and conversing with entrepreneurs, and in the comments section we received lots of suggestions that could have made the list as well. One such suggestion was Sprouter, which is, for lack of a better description and despite having a few unique features, a Twitter clone for entrepreneurs.