LinkedIn

Well, looks like some folks over at LinkedIn are going to be busy updating their profiles. Reid Hoffman’s will now include Founder and CEO of LinkedIn followed by Chairman of the Board of LinkedIn followed by interim CEO of LinkedIn and now landing at Executive Chairman of LinkedIn. Good thing Reid has stuck around to fill in the gaps.

When someone clicks on an ad, well . . . we all know he or she's not exactly making a binding show of interest.  When someone tries to read a 10,000-word nonfiction text document, on the other hand, he's committing a fair amount of time to the author.  So LinkedIn is implementing the somewhat clever idea of making white papers act as ads.

LinkedIn is available in the English, Spanish, French, and German languages, although users can post their profiles in over 40 different languages. The company would like to offer its services in more languages though, and is calling upon its user bases to help it out with that.

Popular professional social network LinkedIn has launched some improvements to the search feature of LinkedIn Recruiter, its tool for recruiting passive job candidates. The search feature now comes with a new dynamnic refinement tool, which gives users the ability to more quickly break down candidates according to the precise expertise, geography, education, and industry background you're looking for.

LinkedIn wants you to use their social network. It only makes sense that they would provide helpful tips for doing so on their company blog. What's a better use for a company blog anyway? But LinkedIn is a popular social network among business professionals anyway, and those who already use it heavily and those who don't can potentially benefit just the same by taking LinkedIn's advice. Tips for Personal Branding 

Facebook is not the only social network doing some redesigning. LinkedIn has made some changes to users' inboxes on the homepage. These changes are certainly not as drastic as Facebook's which have the community in an uproar. I might be wrong, but I don't expect much of a backlash here. The inbox now only appears on your home page when you have unread messages (though your inbox and read messages will always be available from the left-hand navigation bar).

It may be worth mentioning Barack Obama may be the first President with an active LinkedIn account. It’s a bit surreal to look at what is essentially an online resume and see listed as current occupation: President at United States of America. Everything’s in first person as though he maintains the account himself:

LinkedIn is a social network that often gets lost in the shuffle with greater attention being paid to Facebook and Twitter, but LinkedIn is making money focusing on its niche of professional networking. Marketing Shift, which notes that LinkedIn just came off its most successful quarter yet, takes a look at the network's "three-pronged" revenue model: