The LinkedIn API Opportunity

LinkedIn is truly taking off. Measure it by the accelerating rate of new professionals creating networks in LinkedIn, more than a million every six weeks. Measure it by the dramatic increase in site visits, well over a million unique visitors every week. The value of your LinkedIn network is growing by leaps and bounds. While we can provide you a lot of value on the LinkedIn.com web site, it's time you derive the same value from your business network as you visit other sites across the web.

We recognize that there are literally hundreds of places and ways to use your LinkedIn network in your  professional life. APIs will allow you to literally “take your professional network with you” as you go through your work day, using your network on the sites you visit to get things done.

Maybe you’re going to a conference and want to know whether anyone from your network will be attending as well. Or you’re job hunting at sites across the web and want to see at a glance whether any of your connections knows someone at a hiring company, or better yet, whether you know the hiring manager through a common connection. Maybe you’re using your corporate CRM application and want to see the LinkedIn profile for people you track so you can see what you have in common. Or you’re reading a blog like this one and want to see the LinkedIn profile for people mentioned in a post or the people commenting on a post. LinkedIn APIs will let developers build applications that integrate with LinkedIn so you can access your LinkedIn network and profiles while you use that application.

Over the next few months, you’ll start hearing about integrations with major business and consumer web players and we’ll introduce you to the APIs that you can use to do the same. Every day, you’ll find new
uses for your professional network that will enhance your productivity as more and more web sites and business applications provide integration with your LinkedIn network.