Linkedin Blog

Editor’s note: This blog post is authored by Andrew He, a Stanford student currently completing his Master of Sciences degree in Computer Science.  Andrew is a two-time LinkedIn intern, and spent the summer of 2009 focused on the LinkedIn mobile platform.

I suppose this blog post could have been entitled: “What I did on my summer vacation.” Truth be told, I’m just thrilled to see LinkedIn for iPhone v1.5 in the iTunes app store. There’s nothing more gratifying as a developer than to see your work go live.

This past summer, I was able to dedicate myself to enhancing the LinkedIn mobile platform. In the Fall of 2008, I was lucky enough to be one of the first students to take the new CS 193P: iPhone Application Development course at Stanford. I was looking for the opportunity to put that work to good use, and LinkedIn was excited to have me join the mobile team for the summer.

[Ed. Note: This is a guest post from Nancy-Ann DeParle, Director at the Office of Health Reform and Counselor to the President, in response to comments from the health care community on LinkedIn regarding the challenges faced by health care professionals in their state]

Thank you for joining the discussion and sharing your thoughts on the health care challenges in your state.  The President understands those challenges and has made it clear that health insurance reform must bring stability and security to Americans who have insurance today, provide affordable coverage to those who don’t, and lower the cost of health care to help our families, businesses, and government.

Many of the comments you posted online are similar to those we have heard from doctors, nurses, physician assistants, and other medical professionals across the county.  You see firsthand the problems with our health care system – what happens when patients cannot receive the care they need because an insurance company has decided to drop or water down coverage, or when individuals do not have check-ups or preventive screenings because insurance companies do not cover them or they are uninsured.  Dr. Joel commented that “our focus needs to shift to strategies of prevention and include incentives for healthier lifestyles.”

As of early this morning, LinkedIn has 50 million users worldwide and we’re growing that figure at roughly one new member per second.  When LinkedIn launched in 2003, it took 477 days — almost a year and four months — to reach our first million members. This last million took only 12 days.

Where are these 50 million users? LinkedIn has been global since inception — about half of our total membership is international.  There are now 11 million users in Europe alone. India is currently our fastest-growing country with almost 3 million users, while the Netherlands has the highest rate of adoption per capita outside the U.S., at 30%.

[Ed. note: This is a guest blog post from Scott Lawley from SAP on their first community app on the LinkedIn platform: SAP Community Bio.]

Like many of you reading this blog post today, I’m an avid LinkedIn user. For me, LinkedIn is an effective tool that I use on a regular basis to network with people within my industry, and to research new leads and opportunities.  Given time constraints I often don’t have the time to update my online profiles on various social networking sites and would imagine this is a pretty common scenario. Starting today, we’ve made it extremely simple to share your SAP Community Network contributions to your LinkedIn network without any hassle.

As a product manager of the SAP Community Network (SCN), I am often asked similar questions by our members about making available SCN user profile information on LinkedIn.  Because our members develop a reputation over time through their contributions and community involvement, they would like to be able to take that with them to other social networking sites. And, now with the launch of SAP Community Bio, you can install an application on your LinkedIn profile that pulls data from your SCN business card.