Today Linkedin announces the roll out of several professional applications (like Facebook’s) based on Google’s Open Social platform. Sounds good in theory. They have some cools apps to choose from like WordPress, Google Docs, Slideshare and TripIt. To add an application to your Linkedin profile, you go to Linkedin’s Applications page, select an app, and click install.
That’s when things get ugly. As you can see in these screenshots, every attempt I made to add an app failed. I thought the problem might be with Firefox, but I got the same error in IE7. Maybe Linkedin’s servers are failing under the demand, maybe the problem’s with Open Social, or maybe it’s the third party application providers that are flunking the test. In any case, it’s quite disappointing. Click the screenshots for a larger view:
The other disappointing thing is that the WordPress application seems to only accept WordPress.com blogs, not self-hosted blogs like this one (did ya notice the change?). But maybe this is just another server glitch.
In any case, I hope Linkedin can pull this together. The WordPress and TripIt apps are ones I’d actually use.
Check out this video of what Linkedin hopes to deliver on with its applications features:
UPDATE: Well, it looks like some of these features were added to my profile despite the error messages. TripIt and WordPress both added successfully. Slideshare is hanging at 80% of completion.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Ben,
I had the same problem but doing a Crtl-F5 refresh in FF seemed to clear the problem up.
Also, the Blog Link application automatically picks up the feeds of the website that are listed in your profile. Mine included two self-hosted WP bogs and my Twitter stream. There doesn’t seem to be a way to get the feeds for self-hosted blogs that aren’t listed in your profile.
Lee
I got the email early this morning. I was like wow, now LinkedIn is trying to be like Facebook (like Myspace’s crappy applications). Well I looked a little further and told myself this was a little better, because at least they are relevant to the purpose of LinkedIn and make sense to have these types of applications with an online resume (what I use LinkedIn for).
Well… that’s where my happiness ended. I couldn’t get the WordPress app to load this morning, it was just blank. Maybe server overload, ok, forgivable. Then when I went back this afternoon, it was fine, entered my blog address and viola! There was my SNAP blog, but… the blog appeared BEFORE the experience section on my profile… uh… not cool. My profile is there to be my professional presence, not to promote my blog.
Would be really nice if people could decide where the applications appeared, or if they were smaller in size. I’d personally prefer something small and discreet on the side as an addendum to my resume, not the behemoth that is the WordPress application in it’s current state.