LinkedIn becoming more like other social networks
Looking to become a destination that people visit more regularly, LinkedIn has begun rolling out a new feature that lets individuals and companies post photos, documents and presentations in status updates.
“Whether it’s a thought provoking presentation about the future of big data or it’s a picture of an inspirational quote, or perhaps it’s an infographic showing the top trends impacting your industry, the possibilities are endless for what you can share on LinkedIn to add a richer and more visual component to your professional discussions,” LinkedIn’s Itamar Orgad said in a blog post.
Users can either directly upload files or paste in the URL for content that is hosted elsewhere. LinkedIn also allows updates to be posted to Twitter at the same time.
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The emphasis on soliciting visually appealing posts puts LinkedIn in direct competition with Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Like those social networks, LinkedIn has sought to monetize the news stream on its homepage by attracting more advertising dollars. But often seen as clean and uncluttered, the homepage’s shift toward more rich media could alienate some users.
LinkedIn has sought to move beyond being a website simply for job-seekers to being a widely used media platform. Last month, the company acquired personalized news aggregator Pulse for $90 million. LinkedIn said Pulse would remain a standalone application.
It also launched a Contacts feature in April and recently acquired polling startup Maybe. Next up on the docket might be changes to the the email feature within LinkedIn.
LinkedIn’s share price soared from about $120 to nearly $170 in February and has hovered around that figure since.
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