A Photo is Worth a Thousand Words
We’re excited to announce that starting tomorrow (Friday 28, 2007) LinkedIn members will have a new option available: the ability to add a professional photo to their profile.
Adding a profile photo is one of the most commonly requested features for the LinkedIn profile, primarily because many people (like me) tend to recognize their colleagues and classmates more reliably by face than by name. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and with this feature we hope to make it easier for people to form richer professional connections online.
LinkedIn Profile with Photo
However, before we could add photos to the site, we had to give considerable thought to the best way to integrate photos into a professional site. Privacy is an incredibly important issue to us, and we wanted to make sure we had the right controls in place. As a result, all members will have the option to control whether their photo is visible to their connections, their network, or everyone.
In addition, we know that there may be some professionals who would prefer to not be exposed to profile photos from people they may not know. As a result, members can also control their ability to see the photos of other members. In fact, we’ve also taken special care to design the site so that while photos integrate seamlessly into the experience, there is no degradation of the experience when photos are not visible.
Photo viewing preferences
A good professional photo is cropped and centered, and as a result we’ve spent some time to provide a simple, rich interface for users to upload large photographs and edit them down to a professional headshot.
Photo cropping tool
We know that people take their professional reputations seriously, and as a result we expect LinkedIn profile photos to be professional in nature. However, we also hope that the wisdom of the millions of LinkedIn users will help us identify photos that violate that. Similar to LinkedIn Answers, members will be able to quickly and easily flag photos that violate policy for review.
Photo flagging capabilities
Over the next few months, we’ll be integrating profile photos into other features where they make sense. In the meantime, keep checking your profile page for the new ability to upload a professional photo. Or, feel free to keep checking my profile. I’ll have my photo up as soon as the feature is live.
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Related articles:
* CNN | LinkedIn allows photos after resisting
* USA Today | LinkedIn let users post photos
* Wall Street Journal | Job references you can’t control
* Business Week | Smile, You’re on LinkedIn
* TechCrunch | Picture this – LinkedIn adds profile photos
* Wired | LinkedIn adds profile pictures
* CNET | With addition of profile photos, LinkedIn is faceless no more
* Yahoo! Tech | LinkedIn gets User photos, starting Friday
* Mashable | LinkedIn gets profile photos
* Zdnet | LinkedIn adds photos – good or bad idea?
* Marketing Shift | LinkedIn puts faces to names
* San Jose Business Journal | LinkedIn adds photos for member profiles
* WebPro News | LinkedIn adds user photos
* Venture Beat | LinkedIn finally adds user photos
Other posts by Adam Nash on the LinkedIn Blog:
* 5 Tips on how to search LinkedIn like a Pro
* LinkedIn at Office 2.0
* LinkedIn User – Dr. Sharon Nash, Pd.D.
* Joining the LinkedIn team – Adam Nash
trackback
http://blog.linkedin.com/2007/09/27/a-pictures-wort/trackback/
Scott Allen September 27th, 2007
Great to see this, Adam — I’m announcing it on my blog and on the Yahoo Groups. I know a lot of people will be really happy about this. I think the cropping tool is brilliant — a sign that some real thought went into this.
Just one question… why do you need a “No One” option on photo privacy? If you don’t want anyone to see your photo, wouldn’t you just not upload it in the first place?
Adam Nash September 27th, 2007
Hi Scott,
Good catch! Actually, it was a mistake in the blog post. We accidentally duplicated the photo viewing preference shot, instead of showing the controls that you have for your own profile photo.
The three options we offer the profile owner are:
- My Connections
- My Network
- Everyone
We’re updating the snapshot in the blog post right now.
As for the cropping, I’m a particular fan of the fact that if you upload a portrait-style photo, the cropping square defaults to the top, where your head normally is located. If you upload a landscape-style photo, the cropping square defaults to the middle. It’s small touches like this that we hope will make it easier for people to create a professional-quality headshot for their profile.
Adam
Vadim Zaytsev September 27th, 2007
Very good idea indeed, nice to see LinkedIn developing.
One small question: will all the connections be notified when a user uploads another version of a photo in the same way they are notified when a user updates the profile otherwise?
Cy Witherspoon September 27th, 2007
I am very pleased to hear about this latest feature. Great job Linked IN!
fadi karam September 27th, 2007
WOW! That’s a great upgrade!
Thanks Guys.
Best from Lebanon,
Fadi
Alfredo Luz September 27th, 2007
I will be a good way to know more the connections in a “human” way. Congratulations
Doc Farmer September 27th, 2007
A question: I normally don’t use my actual photo, but I have a standard silhouette I use when publishing articles online (it’s me with a red fez hat and a yellow tassel). Would such an image be permissible? Or does LinkedIn want ONLY photographs?
Erik Graadt van Roggen September 27th, 2007
Just two weeks ago I asked LinkedIn for this feature, small miracles on delivery!
Are photos displayed in the connections overview? Then, if every name would be accompanied by a little, somewhat nagging “NO PHOTO YET” pic (in case the LinkedIn member hasn’t uploaded his photo yet) this gimmick will catch up in no time.
Marieme September 27th, 2007
Brillant stuff!
Adam Nash September 27th, 2007
Doc:
Our current definition of an appropriate photo is that it should be an actual photograph of the person in the profile.
Erik:
We will be adding photos to other features on the site to help people connect & communicate, but for now, we’re just adding them to the profile page itself. We’ve taken care to make sure the design works for both people who choose to upload a photo, and those who do not.
Adam
Brendan Cowan September 27th, 2007
Great,
This is essential given that other sites such as Viadeo, Ecademy and others have photos as a standard feature.
:-)
Brendan C
David Petherick September 27th, 2007
Well thought through, Adam – look forward to seeing soem ‘vanity publishing’ tomorrow!
The cropping tool is an excellent addition – digital photos are often hi-res files that need cropping down, and as we don’t all have square heads, the ability to centre on a specific point is essential. Nice. I’ve added something in to Answers, and also to my Digital Biographer blog.
One point from my daughter, who never misses anything – should a profile photograph really be a profile, or should you really face the camera? She’s 7.
Regards, David | http://digitalbiographer.com
Doc Farmer September 27th, 2007
Mr. Nash,
Many thanks. Since I do security work, I generally don’t like to publish my actual photo, so I don’t think I’ll be using this particular function myself. However, it looks like a really GREAT idea. Kudos and congrats on the update. I think a lot of folks will benefit from this upgrade!
Doc
Shlomi Harif September 27th, 2007
I guess there’s always someone to pop the bubble. In this age of social (over)networking, I’ve been proud of LinkedIn’s non-visual site. Photos of members have a certain usefulness: if you have too many people in your network it’s a great way to refresh your memory on who that person is.
Photos are ways to peg people by gender, ethnicity and age. And people that don’t provide photos will be at a disadvantage with the white, bilaterally symmetrical people that do post their images. (Assuming, of course, that those are their images.)
If photos are that important, LinkedIn members can point to a public photo site for a pretty picture. Otherwise, this is an opening to discrimination, ’slotting’ a person according to their looks, or wondering why someone didn’t add their photo to their profile.
I understand why LinkedIn felt they had to add this feature, but I think it’s a poor use of development effort that might otherwise have been spent on more useful features for an otherwise fantastic networking tool.
Phil Gerbyshak September 27th, 2007
This is a GREAT enhancement. Thank you VERY much for adding this feature!
Curious…When will you allow a full contact card instead of just a tidbit of information, for level 1 contacts only?
Nehal September 27th, 2007
Let’s do it, I am sure this has lots of value and great way to identify my connection, not only on linkedin but out side the office, in restorent or even in public places. When I have seen a picture of my connection in linkedin, I will recognise anyone by face, and If I see anyone in front of me, I can just walk to him/her and say, “Hey, You are in my linkedin connections, never met before, and thanks to linkedin’s “Upload a Photo” I am able to recognise you” It’s ammezing. I am exited.
Nehal
Ankur Sethi September 27th, 2007
Hey Adam,
Good work there, I believe this would enhance relationship between linkedin and its uses. More and more features sound good for the users. From a technology point of view, these are small changes for you :), but good to learn that you guys have eye for improvisation.
On a second thought, I wonder how many people would actually prefer putting up their pictures.
Are you heading towards becoming another orkut or face book kind of a portal?
Cheers,
Ankur Sethi
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ankursethi
Ruwan Rajapakse September 27th, 2007
Having the photo option with the neat cropping tool is a very good idea indeed! It gives a (hopefully professional) personality to the people we network with.
Cheers from far away Sri Lanka.
Ruwan
Vasco September 28th, 2007
The photos will make it easier to remember who people requesting connections are. It helps in Facebook, where I didn’t know if “Guy Fee” was the Guy I knew from school or just somebody trying to expand his friends list.
I appreciate LinkedIn adding my University too. The improvements help keep LinkedIn on top.
One thing I noticed in Facebook was that when I accept a connection from someone, there’s the option to confirm where I know them from. I don’t know if LinkedIn has any plans to adopt such a feature, I would find it useful to know that my connections are people who know me (some people change their appearance over the years, and/or their last names…).
Anyway, keep up the good work. And thanks for informing us of the new feature… (I better find a photographer)
Anshuman September 28th, 2007
Great feature Adam. I just uploaded mine. You guys rock.
Heard you all are going the facebook way. Please don’t!
I would love to see more action on the Groups side…If you could integrate with Google or Yahoo groups it would save many of us a lot of effort.
Cheers. Anshuman.
Rahul Rathore September 28th, 2007
Good work guy. we all were waiting for this update to happen.
Cheers
Rahul
Siddarth September 28th, 2007
I would say its a good feature been added in the competitive Networking Industry. and as its simply said “A picutre is worth thousands words…” very true…
Thanks
Siddarth
Chris Houston September 28th, 2007
Adam,
Your photo on your profile currently shows up as a bad image! You might want to fix that one as it’s probably going to be the most viewed profile initially.
Chris
Oliver (cellity.com) September 28th, 2007
This is a great enhancement!
Cheers from Germany.
Oliver
Paul Miller September 28th, 2007
It doesn’t seem to work?
I uploaded a photo successfully this morning – and people were able to see it.
This afternoon that photo is no longer visible, and LinkedIn won’t let me upload it again.
Scaling problems with this feature?
Lorenzo Maffioli September 28th, 2007
Great, a true improvement.
Agustin Di Luciano September 28th, 2007
Hello Adam,
Please let “Connections Browse” in Privacy Settings be more flexible. I want to let certain people browse my connections, and others don’t. Quite simple but VEEEERY useful to manage my connections.
By the way, GREAT work with the photo feature, I’ve been expecting it, so THANKS!
I’m in Mobile VAS Product Management, it would be an honour to be connected with you through LinkedIn.
All the best, and Cheers for LinkedIn !!!
Agustin
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Marcela September 28th, 2007
Nice feature! I think I was one of the first to upload my photo, right after this post was published!
Anyway, I wanted to make a suggestion, now that it seems you are making changes. Sometimes I feel like a question in LinkedIn would be interesting for one of my contacts, not necessarily as an expert, but may be interested in the answers too. I tried to share the question with the “Share this” link, but it gives the usual choices (del, digg…). The only option for me was to copy-paste the URL in a message. How about linking to the list of contacts so that they can receive the message via LinkedIn?
Just an idea… :-)
In any case, nice site. Very interesting and useful.
Cheers,
M.
Adam Nash September 28th, 2007
Hi everyone,
We had some issues very early this morning (Pacific Time) with our photos for some users. There definitely has been some real energy & excitement around this feature. Always a price to pay for launching a popular feature, right?
The picture viewing and uploading should be working for everyone now, and we’re monitoring it very closely, pushing fixes as needed.
Thanks to all of you who posted comments alerting us to the issue.
Catherine Soubeyrand September 28th, 2007
Hello,
This new feature adds a human touch to the site. It is good to be able to associate a face with a name. You have well tought the feature in order to have users in control. I wonder who in my contacts might have added a photo to her or his profile! But my now, the only way to know that, is to check profile one by one :)
Cheers
Catherine
James Hayward September 28th, 2007
A great addition to what is already the best professional networking site in the market.
Regards
James
Koshy Samuel September 28th, 2007
I have already requested this from the start to include photo. Anyway this is very valubale addition to all networkers.
Koshy
LASIK September 28th, 2007
By the way, GREAT work with the photo feature, I’ve been expecting it, so THANKS!
Jeremy Coates September 29th, 2007
Great concept, however doesn’t work on Firefox (1.5.0.12) / Linux (Fedora 6) – just sits there forever ‘Uploading photo’ – which for a 4k Jpeg just seems a little too long ;)
Guillaume Castevert September 29th, 2007
Hi Adam,
Thanks for adding this really useful feature. Developping a network will be much easier now. Among the comments I posted to you a few months ago, I believe you need “only” to add the multilingual feature… I know it’s a lot of work and that you are working on it (there have been some hints about that). Keep up with the good job!
Guillaume
Yaseen Mohammed September 29th, 2007
This is just a gr8 idea..and will help a lot!
Elvin Siew September 29th, 2007
Finally putting a picture into a great profile means everythings. I know i will be putting up my best picture then. Great stuff!
Cheers!
Elvin Siew
Avish Sharma September 29th, 2007
Blatantly, it is a lucrative and valuable addition for professionals linked with LinkedIn.
It’s a prudent saying that “face is the index of mind.”
Moreover it will increase the propensity to dramatically stumble across with our past buddies or colleagues(names: which we sometimes forgot)
I hope LinkedIn will come up with more valuable additions in the near future.
Great job & Best of luck.
Cheerz
Avish
Amity Legal Alliance – Cost benefits for law firms
Vijay Challa September 29th, 2007
“Wonderful & Delighted”
Every LinkedIn Member Can See Each Other If They Have A Personal or Official Meetings Now and Then. LinkedIn Used Good Feature For Their Website.
Photo, Let This Feature Must Be More Successful In Internet & Web World.
Good Luck For All LinkedIn Members.
Comments And Suggestions For LinkedIn Management:
a) LinkedIn Should Put White Mark On Each & Every Member of LinkedIn and Hence It cannot be misused In Any Web Applications.
b) Further, LinkedIn Can Integrate Instant Messengers Like MSN/Yahoo/Skype/AIM/GoogleTalk/ICQ To Communicate Each Other Very Effectively. Hope This Feature Will Do Very Effective Job.
Vijay Challa
India.
Renu Satti September 30th, 2007
Hi! It is always good to put a face to a name.
Great idea indeed.
With regards
Renu
Mr.Kyle Sho September 30th, 2007
hi
this is great enhancement
GUSTAV ANANG October 1st, 2007
Great work done. seeing someone implement the vision we all yaerning for. Keeping us together.
Good
Gustav
Don Carter October 1st, 2007
Adam,
Great work on the photo integration.
Not sure if this has been implemented as part of this new feature and I’m sure as a team you’ve discussed this but you may want to add in the ability to block photos when you apply for a job via Linkedin (on the client and candidate side).
I think this may need to be a separate option than whether you want to show it to just friend, your network or everyone. If the photo is submitted automatically with the job application, that can be considered an illegal pre-employment inquiry because the person can easily view gender and make guesses about a person’s race. Can open up unwanted liability for employers using Linkedin (and Linkedin itself) by forwarding the photos with profile.
This same issue is being debated now with video resumes and use of photos on mainstream job sites as well.
Regards,
//Don//
Anders Moller October 1st, 2007
This is great! As a long time user of both Linkedin and Xing, the photo feature has been a definite advantage of Xing. Now they’ve both got that, and they complement each other well (as do several other great business networking sites, e.g. ecademy).
Myles Bristowe October 3rd, 2007
I uploaded a photo of myself into my LinkedIn profile and I think the feature really put a “face with the name”. Especially for people I work/collaborate with who are physically in other states or countries where we have never met in person. The only challenge I had was taking a picture of myself that I would be “happy” with.
Kudry October 28th, 2007
Great! Adam, you are awesome :)
Tom November 7th, 2007
Hi,
I really like it. Great cropping tool. Could you please tell me which API or tool you are using for the resize and cropping. The UI is fantastic! Thanks.
I am looking for a similar feature for a forum I am running.
Adam Nash November 7th, 2007
Hi Tom,
No API or Tool, the functionality was built in house and tailored to match the specific needs for professional headshots. We did our best to make it as easy as possible to crop a standard photo to a professional style shot.
For example, one secret feature we put in was the default location of the cropping square. The cropping tool defaults to the top of the image for a portrait-style photo, but it defaults to the middle of the image for a landscape-style photo.
Just some of the detail we tried to think about for our first photo feature.
Hope this helps.
Adam
Tian May 24th, 2008
Hi! It is always good to put a face to a name.
Great idea indeed.
With regards
Tian
Michael October 1st, 2008
Hi, Adam! Any possibility of open-sourcing this wonderful tool? I think there are several companies who could benefit from this and certainly would give LinkedIn some great marketing in new markets it might not be as involved in yet.
sumit October 14th, 2008
hi i am quite impress with the possibilities & potential it is having in itself..
mamal February 23rd, 2009
I have just got linked-in, very unique,hopefully helpful.