LinkedIn News Roundup (August 2007)

Every week, there's a slew of news items, press mentions and blog posts that talk about LinkedIn. Since, our blog is THE source to aggregate all manner of content related to LinkedIn, we thought it'd be a good idea to give you this past week's LinkedIn News roundup.  Depending on the response from readers, we may make it a weekly fixture on the blog.

Here are recent press and blog posts from the past couple of weeks that talk about LinkedIn  (everything  from playgrounds to LinkedIn best practices):

#1: San Francisco Chronicle | Playground mentality comes to the office

Many of you who attended Lunch 2.0 at our new digs in Mountain View, may have noticed we gave away four-square balls as swag. Some of you may have seen our web development team playing four square at the SimplyHired Lunch 2.0 events. Well, Jessica Guynn (formerly from SF Chronicle) noticed too:

Four square is also a popular social activity at LinkedIn. After scooter races, basketball and
Whiffle ball flopped as company sports contenders, the Mountain View online service that connects professionals kicked off afternoon four square bouts on a back parking lot.

"Different people had different recollections of the different rules they played by in elementary school," said Chris Saccheri, 30-year-old LinkedIn director of Web development. "So we made it up as we went along."

Check out pictures of us at play and work | Subscribe to LinkedIn photos (Source: Flickr)

Quick Update: Check out Wall Street Journal's coverage of Lunch 2.0, the event we organized a few months ago and read quotes from our colleague, Mike Miller.

#2: Wall Street Journal | Getting a LinkedIn invitation

File this away under tips and tricks. It's definitely worth reading, especially for those who joined LinkedIn recently. This brief article talks of safeguards to ensure better use of our service. For e.g.

You should generally receive invitations from people who already know your email address and LinkedIn users who attended the same school as you or worked at the same company.

#3: Webware (a CNET site) | Nielsen NetRatings serves up July's social media numbers

Now, Nielsen/NetRatings' PR team has released its latest set of figures that track how quickly the top social-networking sites are growing. The results are divided into three different categories of social media: social networks, blogs (and blog platforms) and video sites.

Want to see how fast we've grown this past year. Read the article, which lists recent growth numbers for LinkedIn and a few other social media companies between July of last year and this year.

#4: Chris Brogan | Five things to do on LinkedIn

Chris Brogan's at it again! After an insightful post on Lifehack, this time Chris outlines five ways to use LinkedIn differently.

Reach out to connections on LinkedIn that you know reasonably well and offer to write them a recommendation. Ask if they’re willing to recommend you in return. **Note: it really is important that you ask for recommendations from people you know fairly well.

#5: Wall Street Journal | Big Fish, Smaller Ponds (Subscription required)

The article by Suzanne Barlyn, describes the increasing trend of executives from larger companies moving to startups like LinkedIn. Here's a snippet:

LinkedIn Corp. had just moved to its Mountain View, Calif., offices last May when Patrick Crane visited to interview for the job of the company's head of marketing. Workmen were swinging hammers, and cardboard was scattered across the floors. But Mr. Crane, then a marketing executive at Yahoo Inc. in nearby Sunnyvale, was intrigued by the idea of leaving a corporate giant to help build an industry leader.

Read the rest of the article here (subscription required).

Alright, enough about us. Have a question for us, feel free to leave a comment on our most recent post which offered an overview of Top 10 frequently asked questions about LinkedIn. I also provided a link to our HELP & FAQ pages.

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