Besides earning a reputation as the go-to social network for professionals, LinkedIn also gained notoriety for its apparent eagerness to constantly send out emails to its users.
With Inboxes apparently teeming with correspondence from the company, a group of U.S.-based users recently took LinkedIn to court on a related matter that ended with it having to fork out millions of dollars in damages.
In a bid to deal with its overly enthusiastic automated email system and thereby avoid another run in with the American legal system, the company earlier this year made some long overdue changes that has recently seen email output halve. This, LinkedIn said, resulted in a notable 65 percent drop in complaints, though even this statistic suggests there’s still a significant number of users who continue to be annoyed by LinkedIn’s messaging shenanigans.
Air Traffic Controller
On Wednesday the company revealed its latest weapon against its own ongoing problem: Air Traffic Controller. ATC is described as “a single platform for all communication to our members across LinkedIn, including email, mobile and SMS.” Apparently it uses algorithms to learn how people use its service, and then tailors its notifications accordingly.
Outlining the new platform in a blog post, the company says, “Imagine seeing only the messages you want based on how you’re interacting with LinkedIn.” In reality, LinkedIn users have probably been imagining that for a very long time, so hopefully this new algorithm will finally do the trick.
The company says ATC guarantees “an immediate improvement to both the quantity and quality of communications you [will] receive from LinkedIn.” In other words, fewer messages and some you might actually want to read.
On the matter of email frequency, it offers an example: “In the past, we sent an email for every connection invite you received. Now, if you receive a handful of connection invites in a short period of time, our platform will automatically roll that up into a single email.” Brilliant.
LinkedIn describes ATC as a “huge step” toward getting its house in order when it comes to communicating with its users. If you’re with the social network, have you noticed any improvements? Sound off in the comments below.
