LinkedIn MiniProfile With Actions
Do you like seeing the network updates feed on the homepage, and seeing when your friends and colleagues have new photos, changed jobs, made new connections, or entered a new status? Have you wished that you could more easily send your contact a quick note to catch up, or more quickly see some basic information about him or her? Then you’re in luck.
We’ve just released a new feature that works off the network updates feed on the homepage. We call it MiniProfile With Actions.
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Now when you hover your mouse over a contact’s name in the network updates feed, you’ll see a MiniProfile pop up. The MiniProfile contains some basic information like your contact’s name, geographic location, and position. It also contains some links that allow you to more directly send your contact an email, or download his or her vCard.
So now when I see that Adam Nash's status says he "likes having the SxSW crowd back at work", I can hover the mouse over his name, and I get his MiniProfile:
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So now I can send him a message asking him how the SXSW Interactive conference was, by clicking the "Send Message" link in the MiniProfile.
On the engineering side, this new features leverages a MiniProfile service we put in place a number of months ago for replicating a summary of profile data, along with some other data aggregation, in order to have a more horizontally scalable means of accessing profile data wherever it’s needed on other parts of the site.
We hope this new feature allows users to react to updates from their network and increase interaction with their contacts through LinkedIn.
Thanks to the other members of the team: Scott Schlegel (Web Development), Chris Richman (Product), Shirley Tan (QA), James Richards (Engineering), Boris Roussev (Engineering), and Brad Olcott (User Experience).
Sachendra Yadav Mar 16, 2008
Hi,
Love the network updates and what I love even more is that I can control what updates to see.
I have a gripe though, the pop-ups don't go away when I move my mouse away from the link or the pop-up. I think it should time-out automatically instead of me clicking the [x] every single time.
Sachendra
Jody Ferry Mar 19, 2008
I agree with Sachendra in that I assumed the pop-ups would disappear when I move off the link or box ...more like Netflix does it. What did your usability test show?
Chris Richman Mar 21, 2008
Sachendra & Jody -- excellent suggestion. We went back and forth a little bit on the issue before we launched, but I think you're right so we made the change. There is a short delay after you mouse off, so that you can move into the pop-up and select an action if you want (I hate those sites where you have to move your mouse super fast to catch the pop-up before it disappears) but otherwise it will disappear after the delay.
Thanks for the feedback!
Chris
Nuno Salvaterra Mar 21, 2008
It "crashes" on Opera! Instead of showing the mini-profiles, the blurbs show the very same front page, in a recursive madness that slows down Opera (a lot).
Otherwise, it's great.
illona Apr 10, 2008
The mini profile is really handy. I eidh the options would open new windows insteadof opening in the same window.
I'd also like mini profile to tell me how many connections the person has.
The network updates are excellent. They keep me informed, at a glance, as to what my network is up to = without having to open each profile.
Thanks!
Nicolas Roberge Apr 15, 2008
It's a nice feature, but the mini-profiles appear under the flash ads displayed on the homepage.
Kangkan Apr 29, 2008
Godd to see this. But can I also show this miniprofile elsewhere?
For clarity, I have my own site http://www.geekays.net/ and I have put a link to my linkedin profile using the link button from LinkedIn. But I wish, I could just show the profile or a mini profile on my website pulling it from LinkedIn. That will allow me to maintain my profile on LinkedIn only and just mirror out it elsewhere.
Hope to get a positive reply.
Regards,
Kangkan
alan nash May 6, 2008
I agree with most of the above except for one thing. I am a professional - also in DTP, IT and marketing and presentation. I have performed these functions in various contexts and environments. I am active on many networks, each of which has a house style with bling bling. I joined your professional network which sings the praises of high quality professional networking and representation. Lose the banners. Even youtube does not do this. I understand we all need money to live but I believe that your popularity will grow on quality which is a minority state at the moment. Keep up the good work and arrange borderless video places in the profiles for Adobe Flash 9 at the least. Your surge will be noticeable. Maybe you want to hire me? Just kidding - I have a school to run
Rahul Bhattacharjee May 12, 2008
Hey ,
Its really a cool feature. Saves a lot of time of the users. One can decide whether to look the complete profile or not. Kindof extended tooltip of a contact.
Useful !
--Rahul