LinkedIn Updates Twitter Application

LinkedIn announced yesterday a new improvement to its Tweets application that allows members to locate and manage their LinkedIn connections on both LinkedIn and Twitter. LinkedIn users can install the updated application and use it to easily find the people they currently follow on Twitter, view Twitter feeds and tweet from their accounts.

The improved Tweets application offers several handy features including a new module, “Connections to follow,” which recommends new people for users to follow based on LinkedIn connections. Users can also use the new “Connections” tab to view LinkedIn connections who have added Twitter accounts to their LinkedIn profiles. Finally, the upgraded Tweets application also provides a way for users to save LinkedIn connections as a dynamic Twitter list, with the ability to add and remove Twitter accounts to the list daily based on LinkedIn connections.

LinkedIn Makes Finding a Job Easier

LinkedIn announced yesterday a major upgrade for job seekers on the popular career networking site: the Job Seeker Premium Account.

According to the company’s blog announcement, the new account allows job seekers to move to the top of the hiring manager’s list when they apply to jobs on LinkedIn; send personalized InMail messages directly to hiring managers; and save profiles, add notes and keep track of contacts from the job search with Profile Organizer. According to LinkedIn, the networking site has tens of thousands of job listings.

In conjunction with the launch of the Job Seeker Premium Account, LinkedIn announced a new Job Seeker Webinar that provides information on how to use LinkedIn to find a job. The webinar features tips for using LinkedIn’s both free and premium tools.

LinkedIn Adds Ex-Ask.com CEO as First Outside Board Member

Reuters reported on Thursday that LinkedIn has added its first independent member to its board of directors. According to a LinkedIn spokesperson, former Ask.com Skip Battle has joined the company’s board of director. Battle, 66, was CEO of Ask.com from 2001 to 2005. He also sits on several other boards of directors at major technology companies, including Netflix, Expedia and Open Table.

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said that Battle is one of several outside board members the company hopes to bring in to help provide additional guidance as the career-oriented social media site looks to expand internationally and with new product offerings in the next few years. Weiner and company founder Reid Hoffman currently sit on the board along with two original investors.

However, Weiner added that Battle joining the board should not be taken as a sign that LinkedIn is ready to make a public offering. According to Weiner, the company still has all of its roughly $76 million initial funding from 2008 in the bank. LinkedIn currently has approximately 65 million members.

LinkedIn Announces New Group for Small Business Owners

LinkedIn has launched Small Biz Nation, a new online community designed to help small business owners connect with other professional entrepreneurs. The new LinkedIn Group offers access to industry experts and technology leaders, making it easy for business owners to collaborate and share ideas.

“At Small Biz Nation, you’ll be able to talk to business owners facing the same challenges you and others who have already had,” wrote guest author on the LinkedIn Blog Rieva Lesonsky. “There are experts who can answer your questions or point you in the right direction towards solutions you’re searching for. Think of it as a community that will help you take the next step and make smart decisions.”

LinkedIn for BlackBerry Now Available

LinkedIn has announced the launch of LinkedIn for Blackberry v1.0, available for download from both the LinkedIn Web site and the BlackBerry App World.

“Now, you can walk into any interview, any customer engagement or client meeting with the ability to look up the details on over 60 million professionals worldwide, in real-time,” said Product Manager at LinkedIn Chad Whitney.

Along with featuring six modules specifically designed for BlackBerry devices, the new app also offers other features including the ability to integrate your LinkedIn connections with your BlackBerry address book, view LinkedIn invitations and messages directly in your BlackBerry Inbox, and view the LinkedIn profile on your BlackBerry calendar.

The LinkedIn for Blackberry app supports the Tour, Curve, and Bold devices running Blackberry OS v4.3 or later.

LinkedIn Enhances Job-Matching Feature

LinkedIn today unveiled a new real-time profile matching feature, making it easier for users to be matched with the right job opportunities and hiring managers and recruiters to find qualified candidates.

According to the announcement, the new beta feature–which is automatically included with very job posting on LinkedIn–uses proprietary technology to locate the best candidates from over 60 million professionals. Job posters are then presented with up to 24 qualified matches in a new, business card-style format. Managers and recruiters can easily view qualified profiles and contact the best applicants for the job.

New Version of LinkedIn for IPhone

LinkedIn today announced that Apple has released LinkedIn for IPhone v3.1, an updated version of the v.3.0 app that was released in December 2009. Available now in the iTunes App Store, the new v3.1 app includes over a dozen small feature enhancements including an easier way to navigate through connections and mark Favorites and the ability to set your status directly from your profile page.

Although LinkedIn is in the process of developing a large number of bigger improvements, the company chose to focus the recent changes primarily on making the application “faster and more stable for people with large networks.”

Since its launch in December 2009, the number of active users of the application has tripled.

LinkedIn Partners with Calendar Application

If you have ever been invited to a company meeting and wondered the title, role and background of the other attendees, now you can find out. LinkedIn announced yesterday that it has integrated its services with Tungle.me, a calendaring application company, making it easy for meeting attendees to view the LinkedIn profiles of other professionals from across the globe who are invited to the same meeting.

“Now, when you access a meeting invitation that you’ve organized or been invited to through Tungle.me, you’ll see LinkedIn icons next to each attendee with a LinkedIn profile,” said Marc Gingras, CEO and Founder of Tungle Corporation.

LinkedIn currently offers a network of over 60 million business professionals in over 200 countries around the world.

Manage the Sections on Your LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn has added a new feature to its profile settings that allows users to reorder the section of their profile via drag-and-drop. Users can now highlight specific skills, expertise and/or experiences by simply clicking and dragging the new handles featured on the headers of the “Edit Profile” page.

In a post on the LinkedIn blog, Associate Product Manager at LinkedIn Aaron Bronzan writes, “At LinkedIn we’d like to provide you with all the tools you need to build and maintain a profile that can showcase your unique professional value. Now you’re in complete control over your professional brand.”

According to the blog post, LinkedIn plans to unveil a series of new enhancements to its profile section in the upcoming months.

LinkedIn platform now live

Developers worldwide can now integrate LinkedIn into their business applications and Web sites, the social networking site announced today. The LinkedIn platform leverages the open OAuth standard to make integrations from almost any language and development environment as simple as possible.

In the past couple of months, LinkedIn has partnered with companies such as IBM, Blackberry and Microsoft to support integrations and have extra time to invest in both functionality and scalability of the platform.

According to announcement, various developers who have helped provide the company with feedback and guidance will be announcing integrations in the coming weeks, including TweetDeck. Users can now “easily view or take action on their LinkedIn network updates from within TweetDeck, with the full integration of the LinkedIn profile information of the person who posted the update.”

Interested developers can begin developing for the LinkedIn platform at http://developer.linkedin.com. To date, LinkedIn has more than 50 million users with professional identities and relationships.