Mario Sundar

Do you speak LinkedIn in French? Not bad, it was just time to dust off my French that I learned during high-school to write a title for today’s blog post. Of course, it had to do with us, at LinkedIn, launching the French version of our site. The Spanish version is already live on our site and both versions can be easily accessed from the top right hand of our site header.

Making the LinkedIn en Français video demo

This time, Rob and I, wanted to create a video uniquely distinct from the recent app videos we created, the user videos but also different from the Spanish welcome video we created. We featured Sunil, product manager behind the international launch as well as Reid, our co-founder.

Of course, the central person in the video had to be Jean-Luc, another co-founder and probably the only person in the video who speaks French, the way it’s meant to be spoken. Enjoy!

Filed under: LinkedIn Features

So, I’ve been using LinkedIn’s new search functionality for a few weeks and I love it. Today, my colleague, Esteban blogged about it (includes a video demo as well). But, if I were to capture two simple reasons I love the new search, it’d be (a) customization and (b) saved searches. Read on.

1. Customization

Allows you to customize your people search results by 11 fields ranging from “In Common” connections to “Groups” and “Recommendations”.

Customization for LinkedIn's New Search

2. Saved searches

Now you can save specific people searches and be notified when there are updates via email (either on a weekly or monthly basis). Love it!

LinkedIn's new Persistent Search

Try http://www.linkedin.com/search

Want to check out the entire suite of functionality. Watch Esteban’s demo.

Filed under: LinkedIn Features

I’m sure all of you reading this blog know that one of the key features of professional networking is “networking”. D’uh! You know? Attending events/conferences/tradeshows, etc… to make the right connections. Connections you then manage on a site like LinkedIn. So, the first part is finding the right events to network at and the second part is managing the connections thus accumulated.

Starting today, LinkedIn is gonna make the first part of that equation – super easy to do, with our Events feature. Check out the five reasons I think LinkedIn Events is game changing (after the jump). Before that, watch my colleague Christina Wodtke demo the feature:

Five reasons LinkedIn Events is game changing:

1. It’s on LinkedIn – the world’s largest professional networking site

Alright, I work there, but allow me to marvel at the vast network of professionals who can be found there, currently at over 30 million. So, in essence it’s the perfect demographic of networkers out there. I have over 500 connections and this would allow me to map events I attend with my connections’ events as well.

2. It’s about degrees of separation

Never before has it been easier to find out which of your colleagues and peers are attending events you’d like to go to. Or on the flipside, figure out which events to attend based on your peers’ recommendations.

3. It’s about network updates

The easiest way to stumble upon the wisdom of your network (from an event perspective) is to log into your homepage and see event updates from your colleagues/business partners, click through them and decide whether you’d like to attend them or not.

4. It augments your professional brand

Better still, when one clicks on your full profile, they can view the most recent events you’re (1) attending, (2) exhibiting, or (3) presenting at.

5. It’s got thousands of events – on day 1

Not only can any LinkedIn user add events, share and invite their colleagues and peers, but on day 1, we start of with over 8000 events brought together via event organizers such as TechWeb, HSM, etc… as well as event coordinators such as Eventbrite.

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What did other bloggers think about it?

• Read Write Web: LinkedIn launches powerful events feature
  

We like LinkedIn a lot here at ReadWriteWeb and we think Events is a great addition to the service. The events feature appears to be built on the OpenSocial platform, so there’s a good chance that these features will be available in other settings beyond LinkedIn in the future.

• Mashable: LinkedIn Events bring conference networking online
  

Smartly, LinkedIn Events pulls information from sites like Eventbrite and then builds features around it as opposed to re-creating the wheel by asking users to build a new event database from scratch.

• Venture Beat: LinkedIn launches events to help you schmooze in person
  

Given that LinkedIn is all about business networking and collaboration, this is obviously a useful feature to aid schmoozing. It is another example of the company trying to become more of a destination site for people, not just a place they log in occasionally to make connections.

• Chris Brogan: LinkedIn throws a little upcoming into the site

LinkedIn just announced a new event application. So it’s like Upcoming.org for businesses. I dig it. And then, I wonder what else we’re going to do here.

What do YOU think of LinkedIn Events? Try it here.

Filed under: LinkedIn Features

Phew! These past few weeks has been such a roller coaster ride, both at work and home. At work, we announced the launch of ten productivity apps on LinkedIn. The apps launch gave me yet another opportunity to work with good friend and colleague, Rob Getzschman, on a series of educational demos on the apps.

We took our learnings from previous ventures and put together (what’s in my opinion), an extremely effective set of educational demos. For e.g. here’s the overview piece that shows the app partners we launched with.

This was definitely the most complex shooting schedule we pulled off with over 10 shoots on 2 days, followed by an intense post-production schedule where Rob churned out the 10 demos that you can now find here.

Expect a post shortly on best practices for creating educational demos on tech products – in a YouTube world. If you lived under a rock and haven’t installed any of these apps yet, go ahead and do so now.

Install your favorite LinkedIn App/s now

Filed under: LinkedIn Features

Lauren from the Street.com, has a nice write-up on how social networking can be a small business’ friend when it comes to “professional networking”. She suggests LinkedIn Answers as an easy way to find quality answers to questions you have on macro topics. Actually,

Cynthia Trevino, a small-business owner who also maintains a blog called Small Company Big Image, needed to find a referral for a customer near San Francisco, about 500 miles away.

Guess where she found her answer. On LinkedIn Answers:

I went online to LinkedIn early that morning and posted this question to everyone who works in the Bay area,” she says, “and I got 20 responses within two hours.

Lauren then goes on to suggest that LinkedIn may not be the best forum to discuss issues on narrow topics such as handling payroll issues or firing an employee. But, I beg to differ. LinkedIn has probably the most extensive range of Answers on almost every professional topic under the sun.

Couple of things to keep in mind.

1. Search on LinkedIn is super-easy

LinkedIn Search

Read more about it in this piece I wrote recently. Search through Answers to find Q&A threads on professional topics.

2. Even topics you may consider arcane are generally well-represented on LinkedIn, owing to the Long Tail of knowledge across different professional groups.

For e.g. the 2 examples suggested by Lauren have a depth of Q&A’s on LinkedIn that I was able to find with a simple search. Here are some questions on payroll issues and here are some on employee hirings/firings. In addition you can delve into categories such as Employment & Labor Law, Personell Policies, Career Management, etc…

So, what are you waiting for? Pick a topic and go searching for answers on LinkedIn. BTW, I work at LinkedIn as community evangelist. Follow me on Twitter.

Have you found an answer on LinkedIn you couldn’t find anywhere else. Share.

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Filed under: LinkedIn Features

Do You? Speak Spanish? Well, I’ve learned French while in high-school and tried to speak really broken español in college, but nothing could prepare me for my terrible audition. A video published on the LinkedIn blog announcing the launch of LinkedIn en español, marks my debut. Check it out below.

I love the intro graphics, my colleague Rob‘s post-production skillz and of course the “flawless” Spanish pronunciation from yours truly as well as Dan, Reid, Patrick, and others. Well, why don’t you just check out the video for yourself. It’s your one chance to catch me spout Spanish in the middle of a terrible hair day! Too bad, we couldn’t get my colleague and friend, Adam Nash, into the mix.

For those who’d just like to check out the Spanish language LinkedIn. There are 2 easy steps:

1. Log into LinkedIn with your existing id.

http://www.linkedin.com/

2. Go here and switch the language field.

What do you think of the video? And, how about my Spanish? Do I have any hope?

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Filed under: LinkedIn Features

…And, so does your Inbox on LinkedIn. I know, I had to hold off on the announcement since I wanted my colleagues – the product managers of the respective features, blog about it on the LinkedIn blog. I’m really glad that we have an internal culture where this dialogue between the product/engineering/design team with the users is both spontaneous and timely.

Anyways, read the two announcements and the accompanying feature screen shots:

Announcing LinkedIn’s Searchable Groups Directory – by Ben Guthrie

Search your LinkedInbox with ease – by Chris Richman

What’s even better is that you can access all this cool search functionality right from your LinkedIn homepage.

So, without further ado, head over to the LinkedIn Groups Directory and search for the groups that you’d like to join. And, if you forgot who sent you that InMail on a deliverable you know you can turn to your LinkedIn homepage.

For e.g. Profy did a search for social media groups and found a few. Which professional community would you like to be a part of on LinkedIn? Check out the 43 groups on blogging here.

Thoughts?

Search LinkedIn Groups here

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Filed under: LinkedIn Features

I’ve been noticing a lot of comments on Twitter asking whether LinkedIn has the option to create an old-school resume PDF file from one’s LinkedIn Profile.

Kevin S. Clarke asks

Is there some sort of “save to PDF” option for a resume on LinkedIn that I haven’t found yet?

This was a day or two ago, when my immediate Twitter response was. “Of course!” Interestingly a lot of folks don’t notice it. But, it’s rather conspicuously placed on your LinkedIn Profile right in between the “Print” icon and “Forward this Profile”, both of which are slick features themselves. I even took a nifty little screen shot in case you can’t find it when you check out your LinkedIn profile.

So, there it is. Want to know what users are thinking about this feature. Check out a Twitter search tool called summize to listen-in on your users thoughts. Fascinating! Isn’t it. Here are some comments:

golddave: @trib @debhuff The .pdf export is nice but plain. And if the person I’m sending it to knows LinkedIn they’ll know I just lifted the format.

trib: @golddave @debhuff if you complete your LinkedIn profile thoroughly, the .pdf export is *really* good as a cv/resume

gexla: @boyink Same here, not often asked but it happens. I use the PDF export from LinkedIn. It is formatted just like a resume.

And, you get the idea. Follow your brand name on Twitter with Summize. What does Twitter think of your Company brand?

What do you think of Twitter for Business?

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Filed under: LinkedIn Features

Ha, that was a play on the fact that Xobni is actually Inbox spelled backwards. Still confused? Well, Xobni is a company whose ambition it is to make navigating your complex email inbox simpler. What they offer is a “new way to organize and search your Outlook email.”

In a nutshell, Xobni, reflects your email relationships more accurately and this could prove to be quite efficient in your work email and could enhance your productivity. Today, they took that one step further by pulling additional data from your LinkedIn network. (Disclosure: I work at LinkedIn)

[Image Source: The Xobni Blog]

TechCrunch says:

The partnership with LinkedIn makes Xobni even more useful. It’s too bad Xobni users are still limited to Outlook and Microsoft Windows (though there’s a web-based version for Yahoo Mail on the way).

Anyhow, if you’re not a MS Outlook user (like me) but are a big fan of Firefox, I can show you how to add a LinkedIn Firefox plug-in that allows you to stay close to your professional network as you browse the web. Actually the LinkedIn plug-in was one of 8 plug-ins featured when Firefox 3 launched recently. Take a look.

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Filed under: LinkedIn Features