Refined Network Updates, Groups and new Notes!
I'm back! (check out my recent feature post here) and this time it's to announce a bunch of upcoming feature updates in categories as diverse as Network Updates to Messaging. Before we get into the nitty gritty of each of the four feature refinements, here's an overview that Ruslan and I provided Mario, our community guy, yesterday:
Let's start with the new feature you haven't seen before
1. Personal Notes | One-to-one messaging
How many times have you thought, it'd be nice to message your connections on LinkedIn directly without having to open up your email client. Well, now that's exactly what you'll be able to do. For e.g. let's assume you're browsing the profile of a connection of yours that you'd like to message.
Notice the "Send a message" button. By clicking that you'll notice a popup message box that allows you to directly message Molly.
Alternatively, you'll also be able to compose messages directly from the Inbox as well.
2. Network Updates | Chronological arrangement
Starting today, you'll also notice that your network updates are arranged chronologically, to make it easier for you to understand what it is that your peers and colleagues are up to within your professional universe. If you'd like to explore the Updates further, go through "See more Network Updates" link to a page with the updates archived on a weekly basis.
3. Yahoo! Web Mail Importer (In addition to Gmail and AOL)
One of the important ways to start leveraging the benefits of a social network is to upload your email contacts into LinkedIn. Thus far, we've been providing web mail import of Gmail and AOL and now you can also upload your Yahoo! Mail contacts with LinkedIn. Also, for all you Outlook fans, we've got our LinkedIn Outlook toolbar, which you can download here.
4. Groups
You may have read of the recent upgrades to LinkedIn Groups that Benjamin Guthrie outlined in an earlier post here. In this release, Ben and team just made joining a group on LinkedIn a little bit easier. Whenever you see a group logo on a person’s profile, you are now able to request to join the group by clicking on the logo. Your request to join will then go into a queue for the manager of the group to approve or decline.
Please let us know what you think of the above features and provide us any feedback by leaving a comment on the blog.
Dieter de Vroomen Nov 16, 2007
New layout "Network Updates": the more extended, the better, hence welcome!
About the change in the utility "Personal Notes" am I not pleased. I used the direct link to the email adress quite frequently, as a sort of extension to Outlook. With the current change can't I see the email adress itself and I do not know to what adress my message is forwarded to. It increases the distance between the persons in my network. Hence: please change back to what it was.
Ihor Seheda Nov 16, 2007
Useful features indeed, thanks. Especially 1 & 2.
C Royce Nov 16, 2007
Would like to suggest the ability to customize our linkedin home pages. There's a lot of clutter now on my page and there's a number of items I would want to remove from the page. Please think about an "add/remove" a.k.a. My Yahoo styled approach.
Chris Richman Nov 16, 2007
Thanks for the comments!
C Royce: Good suggestions. I like the idea of giving users more control over what they see. We've got big plans for the homepage in the next few months and will keep this in mind.
Dieter: I'm sorry you're not pleased with the new messaging feature. For people that prefer email, we've kept the link at the bottom of the page. If you click on the email address there, it will open an Outlook window for you. That address, btw, is the one that the LinkedIn messages go to.
Chris
Jeff Martens Nov 16, 2007
I love the new 'Network Updates' section..takes some getting used to, but it is better.
Hopefully there will be more options to come now that you are involved with OpenSocial?
For groups, I'd love to see more functionality. My Alma Mater wants to rely on LinkedIn to organize Alumni. However, it isn't all that useful to us since we can't contact the group as a whole from LinkedIn, download member data (as an administrator), etc.
Otherwise, the Group's feature is just a marketing tool for both the group and individual.
Any more 'Groups' features coming soon?
Vincent Wright Nov 16, 2007
All very nicely done, Guys. Nicely conceived. Nicely delivered.
Of course, in that we come here to network, my favorite is the "Send Message" function...
Thanks!
Vincent Wright
Lucas Lee Nov 16, 2007
Nice updates! I have a few suggestions and feature requests that I think might be useful.
* For the new news feed, right now it's limited to the company the user is working for. Can the user have the option of selecting/adding news feeds from other companies he or she has worked for? I'm not sure which algorithm is used to determine what stories to list, but a use may have worked for companies 'A' and 'B', but the two may not be in the same industry. So currently it is not necessary true that news related to both companies are listed.
* Right now there's the recommendation feature where users can give feedback on people that they are working or have worked with. Can there be some sort feature that is similar where the use can give feedback on the company? Can there also be other surveys (anonymous or non-anonymous) where they rate other working condition factors? Hours, overtime, company culture/morale, pay, benefits? This would be really useful info for all the job seekers out there.
* Ability to displaying the user's email address in the user's profile page (with the option to display it to contacts within your groups, within direct contacts, or turned off by default)
Thanks!
Lucas
Jeff Roseman Nov 17, 2007
All nice improvements. I think the groups need the most work still. A couple of easy? improvements.
1. Give the ability to view group members with the slick tabbed alphabetical list like members of my network.
2. Give ability to send e-mail to your group (only logged in as manager), we don't want tons of spam.
3. Way to see current list of groups. And a way to request membership without an invitation. (i.e. Missing alumni find your group.
Keep up the great work!
--Jeff Roseman
Roger Drummond Nov 17, 2007
Excellent features and terrific design.
One feature that my colleagues and I are still waiting for is to have private comments or tags for our contacts. We need "memory jogs" to help remember where we met some of our contacts.
Viewing their profile or seeing that someone lives in another part of the country doesn't always remind you that you connected with the person "3 years ago at a regional UI conference in Chicago".
Similarly, when you can't remember the person's name, it would be ideal to search for that "Chicago conference", or pull up all contacts that you tagged with "UI".
As LinkedIn becomes more popular, this feature becomes more essential for managing contacts.
--
Again, thanks for the newest features, as they are welcome additions.
Martin Buckland Nov 18, 2007
These are significant enhancements. The send a message will save a ton of time. Keep the upgrades coming.
Good work
Chip Lambert Nov 18, 2007
Fantastic. With each upgrade you are making it easier and easier to use LinkedIn as a network management tool. I'm already using the "send message" function to stay in touch with key people and to cultivate deeper connection and meaningful relationship with some of my newer colleagues.
Now if we could just internally group . . .
Keep up the good work!
Raymond Chip Lambert
Deep Business Development
Ted Meulenkamp Nov 19, 2007
Hi
I actually preferred the old network updates as it was shown per topic. Now I need to go through the list to see if there are questions posted etc.
I'm not too convinced on the news you show. I'd prefer to select what news I get. I assume most of us are pretty much up to date on what their current company is doing anyway? Give more control to the user (RSS feed?)
I'm really waiting for 3 other things from LinkedIn.
1) a way to rate the relationships that you have with people (look at Plaxo Pulse and Neurona).
- News or updates from people that you rate high should go on top in the overviews.
- When sending a request these people show as well be on top of the list as the likelihood they will forward is high. You may want to consider rating people on how often they forward requests from the different degrees of relationship they have. If this ratio was shown on their profile it again would make it easier to select the contact to use to forward a request.
2) better contact management tool. I find it very hard to manage my connections, I would like to be able to select them by company and job function as well for instance.
3) can you add a folder to the inbox that shows pending requests to join your groups?
I'm very pleased with Linkedin as a tool but you need to give more control to the user. If I could put some RSS feeds on my page with news that I find interesting it would make me visit the page even more often!
keep up the good work
Ted
Kevin Stakelum Nov 19, 2007
I too am impressed with the recent improvements. The new dashboard view is very helpful and I like much better than the previous one.
I also agree with the previously stated feedback regarding groups. My understanding of the purpose of groups is to link people with similar interests...it would be very useful if we could communicate with the groups so that we could build community within this set of people that have chosen to express interest in a common topic. In terms of regulating the spam that may result, I think the group network would do that the same way they do it today. It would also incent the group managers to add meaningful content and value (members could rate the group experience, much like they rate the answers that they receive from questions today).
Thanks,
Kevin
Rich Angulo Nov 19, 2007
When one does a one click reference or 5 company reference check, the results can be overwhelming. It would be great to have the ability or feature of being able to sort the results by region or title. Is this a feature that is being considered? It would certainly make it more efficient to do deeper and more refined searches.
Rich Angulo, Sr. Recruiter
Cisco Systems
Debbie Nov 19, 2007
Some good improvements, however one which a lot of people have suggested that I speak with that is needed is on the advanced section on the contacts page, you can still only sort by industry type and region, which whilst useful is not nearly as useful as saying how many people am I connected to in HP for example, or how many people in HP in the UK - rather than by town or region, which I know for large countries may not make much sense, but surely the data is there ??? Certainly would be useful to see for example easily a filter all contacts I am directly connecto to in XYZ company? Is this feature planned?
Keep up the good work. also agree that tailoring front page would be useful.
Debs
Kare Anderson Nov 20, 2007
Someone in my network asked how we coul find a list of groups in LinkedIn. i do not know where else to ask but here, and would also like to know
Sheilah Etheridge Nov 20, 2007
Some nice changes, however......
Many of us regularly used the "send email" feature that was replaced by send a message. Is it possible to have both?
I think it is wonderful that linkedin has made it easier for people to start groups, but these groups are pointless if no one can find them. Isn't there a way to add a bulletin board to linkedin that people can use to list groups and events?
I prefer the old listing of network updates, listed by type. The new layout is ok but what good does it do to see that Bill, Tom, Sam "and 19 others" added a pic to their profile yet no way to know who those "19 others" are.
One last thing. On the inbox and archiving. I think that is all wonderful, but..... Can we be more efficient by moving the archive button up to the select all area. We have to select all, scroll to the bottom and then archive. Doing that for a few pages is time consuming. Also, it is wonderful we can sort by name or date, but no way to know if John Smith is listed on page 20 or page 179.
Thanks
Sheilah
Todd Nov 20, 2007
I agree with Dieter and Sheilah. Losing 'Send an email' is a major retrograde step for the LinkedIn profiles. I don't care to send messages within the LinkedIn messaging system .
Moving the email to the bottom of the profile requires me to scroll through pages of info and is highly inconvenient. It makes using LinkedIn on my iPhone almost impossible.
Please bring the email address back to the top of the profile. At first I thought this was a bug because it appears to be such an obvious oversight. It was only later I discovered this was a 'feature' to promote LinkedIn messaging. In my opinion it's a poorly thought out one. If I wanted to message my friends outside email, I'd be on Facebook (and still in college), not on LinkedIn.
Rick Regenfuss Nov 21, 2007
I like the ability to message my contacts, BUT please add a place where I can review what I said... As it stands I will probably continue to utilize my email program which will allow me to access my 'sent' messages.
--Rick
Jasper de Valk Nov 23, 2007
I like the new features, but the network updates panel isn't working properly yet. Sometimes it doesn't show all network updates and some network updates occasionally get shown on the wrong date.
Jasper de Valk Nov 25, 2007
A nice additional function would be the option for group creaters/administrators to invite multiple people with LinkedIn msgs instead of having to compose an e-mail.
Chris Richman Nov 26, 2007
Thanks again for all the great feedback and comments. We're working hard on many of your suggestions and hope to release some of them in the coming months.
Rick - If you go to your LinkedIn Inbox, click on "Messages" in the left-hand navigation bar, then click on "Sent" in the upper-right corner you'll be able to see the messages you sent.
Vadim Sukhomlinov Nov 27, 2007
Hi, don't know if its right place to post, but anyway.
Today, LinkedIn is positioned as international, but english-oriented portal/social network. Sometimes, especially in countries with scripts other than Latin, english translation of name is not very accurate or unique. I have an idea how to overcome this - you can add in profile couple fields to set user's name in original language, specify language,etc. It should help to enhance positions of LinkedIn on international markets. Also, adding localized versions of sites and automated profile translator (say from Google :) should help to build connections around the world and break language barrier.Users can set in profiles which languages they can read and engine will select best way of translatation.
Mauro Mello Dec 8, 2007
Something I miss a lot, not only in LinkedIn, but in all social/professional network platforms is NETWORK STATISTICS.
What if we could see statistics of our networks -- density, number of clusters/cliques, etc. -- as well as comparisons to averages of the other LinkedIn users' metrics.
It would also be great if there were measures of distances to "flag users", such as Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama, a farmer in Borneo... whoever you fancy. The important thing is to have a measure of the reach of one's network, and to compare it to, say, the average user and the Top-10% users.
Today we don't even know in what decil of network SIZE we are in. Things like "film producers in Cracovia are in your network" aren't really very informative.
These 2 books cover the subject of network metrics in different levels of detail:
Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications (http://www.amazon.com/Social-Network-Analysis-Applications-Structural/dp/0521387078/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197070743&sr=8-1) is the BIBLE on the subject. Covers everything in a very technical level.
Achieving Success Through Social Capital (http://www.amazon.com/Achieving-Success-Through-Social-Capital/dp/0787953091/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197071125&sr=1-5), on the other hand, is VERY introductory, but presents a few usefull network metrics that would be great to begin with.
You guys at LinkedIn are in a privileged position to start "educating the masses" about social networks. I mean: helping us all get familiar with the shape of our own professional networks, how does it compares with others' etc.
Please, help us start seeing this -- as of today -- invisible aspect of reality.
And, of course, congratulations for the wonderful job you have been doing so far.
All the best!
Salvatore Larosa Dec 10, 2007
Hello,
I would like to suggest the following improvements to your group management features:
1. the creation of a "Group Page" in which
1a. The Group creator can insert text in order to clarify / detail group purposes, rules, foundations etc.
2a. Any Group member can see a list of group members, provided that such listed members have accepted to be listed
2. empowering the linkedin "search" feature: please extend such a search to the Group name. So, for instance, if I am a member of group "My university alumni", I will be able to find all the group members by entering "my university alumni" in the seach text input box
Best regards,
Salvatore
Jenny Day May 21, 2008
I am interested in allowing our new group, Association of Medical Media (AMM), the ability to communicate with one another in a blog. Is this possible? How do I make that happen (as the group manager)... Thanks in advance,