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LinkedIn Apps Arrive

Just received an email from LinkedIn announcing LinkedIn Apps. Here’s a quick look at the apps they’ve launched with and my thoughts on how they might help you with your career reputation management.

LinkedIn Applications available at launch (in decreasing order of first-glance importance) with my quick thoughts:

  • Company Buzz by LinkedIn – Very handy way for non-twitter savvy users to gauge what people are saying about their company.
  • WordPress on LinkedIn – Another way to promote your blog to your connections or future connections.
  • Google Presentation on LinkedIn – A way to share some of your work in a public way (only presentations right now, but wouldn’t be surprised to see other Google Docs added soon). Great way to promote your presentations.
  • Bloglink on LinkedIn – A handy way to keep up with your business network’s latest blog posts.
  • TripIt on LinkedIn – Keep tabs on where your network is traveling. May help you better connect with your network in person.
  • SlideShare on LinkedIn – Share, view and comment on presentations from your network. Use in a promotional way, or use it for pre or post live presentation feedback.
  • Amazon on LinkedIn – Insight into what your network is reading.
  • Box on LinkedIn – Share files on your profile and/or collaborate with your network.
  • Huddle on LinkedIn – Helpful private project management collaboration abilities.

Obviously many of these applications are available on other sites or in other ways, but having them associated with your LinkedIn business network may bring about some interesting opportunities. It will be interested to see how popular these become and what other applications are added.

So far, I’ve installed Blog link (so far first person in my web savvy ~400 person network), WordPress (more control and better profile display than blog link), TripIt (two connections on it thus far), and company buzz (didn’t add to my profile, however). Of the three, I noticed blog link may suffer from speed issues (plus I removed it from my profile as I didn’t like the way it displayed) and company buzz doesn’t work very well compared to other twitter search tools.

Love to hear your experiences and thoughts about LinkedIn Apps.

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LinkedIn Humor

Thought this was pretty funny when accepting a LinkedIn request from a new co-worker named Jack (look at the action buttons):

LinkedIn Humor Don't Know Jack

Apparently I either accept the invite, or admit I don’t know anything.

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Celebrity Vote Meme

This well-done video featuring the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Halle Berry, Courteney Cox, Ellen DeGeneres, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Jonah Hill, Dustin Hoffman, Ashton Kutcher, Eva Longoria, Tobey Maguire, Demi Moore, Natalie Portman, Forest Whitaker and other celebs, is sure to be one of the most rapidly deployed viral videos. The non-partison video is aimed at getting more people to vote using the invite 5 friends meme strategy.

At the time of this posting, the video has less than 100k views. I expect it will surge to a million views in short time.

I’m registered to vote, so I’ll pass this along to 5 more who run websites or blogs in the search community:

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The Real Future of Digg

It appears that Digg is finally closer to being purchased. The leading candidates are Google and Microsoft. While the final owner won’t be known for probably another month, the future of Digg is known:

Google buys diggIf Google buys Digg, it will become Gigg.

Rather than trusting pesky humans to digg news stories, Google will implement an algorithm developed by a team of PhDs based on previous digg analytics data. The new algorithm will look something like this:

if (headline ((pro-Microsoft, -50, anti-Microsoft, +50) (“Apple”, +100) (any game title, +35)) + if (content contains (Scantily clad women, +85, -25) (“Hack”, +35, -5) (displays ads, -20)…

Microsoft Buys DiggIf Microsoft buys Digg, it will quickly become Dugg.

Dugg will be the result of the dust that quickly develops on Digg as it suddenly becomes uncool. To make matters worse, Microsoft will implement content restrictions like no Microsoft bashing, no discussions of Apple or Google, and all gaming diggs must be Microsoft-created games only. Within weeks, Dugg will be the wayback machine of the social news site once known as Digg.If it implements digital accessibility services then it will be a behemoth in the tech field that is unstoppable.

Ask DiggAsk will build a competing product to Microsoft Dugg called “Doug” to add a human element to the archive, but you will have to search news stories with questions like, “What male celebrity is a little bitch?”

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Linkedin Adds Profile Photos

You can now add a photo to your LinkedIn profile. I suggest you use a professional looking headshot. Unlike other social networks, racy or promotional photos won’t be well-received and could result in a loss in present or future connections. Adding a photo is very simple: just go to your profile page, click add photo where the empty box is displayed, then browse the file, upload and make sure the cropping works, then save. Shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds and shows that your connections are a plugged-in early adopter.