LinkedIn Launches Redesign, Opens Platform

Professional social networking site LinkedIn has launched a significant "Web 2.0" revamp of its site, and opened its platform to application developers.

LinkedIn, a social networking service aimed at professionals, has launched a significant revision to its site, integrating “Web 2.0″ elements including customized searches for people and jobs, and an Answers feature that enables users to keep up with conversations. And, of course, LinkedIn wouldn’t be jumping on the social networking bandwagon if it also didn’t open its platform to third-party development, following the lead of popular social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster.

LinkedIn’s Intelligent Applications platform offers developers a set of APIS that can be used to create applications that run within the LinkedIn social networking site, or integrate data from LinkedIn into an application. LInkedIn’s first Intelligent Applications partner is the PR and news distribution service BusinessWeek, which plans to build an application for its own site that will enable BusinessWeek site visitors to access their professional networks to look up profiles of people mentioned in BusinessWeek articles.

LinkedIn demonstrated a sample Intelligent Application last month as part of Google’s Open Social announcement.

“The goal of the Intelligent Applications Platform is to help make our users more effective by providing them with access to the intelligence of their professional network both on LinkedIn and on other sites they visit to get work done,” said LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye, in a statement. “Our focus is 100 percent professional, so we will be working with select business partners to build high value, high productivity applications.”

Of course, LinkedIn’s professional focus has always made it less hip and “sexy” than social networking sites popular among the tween, teen, and digital hipster set; however, that focus has also lead many industry watchers to comment that LinkedIn can be considerably more useful than traditional social networking sites.