LinkedIn Widgetizes; Site Goes Sticky But Not Sticky Enough!

LinkedIn has released a new beta version of their site this morning. And to quote Jan, "widget widget widget". Mario from LinkedIn has a good overview of the new features. There’s also new APIs coming soon. Along with the APIs, I’d love to see some new widgets to integrate into a Web site – profile, jobs, etc.

The new home page looks great – an absolute improvement over the old, crusty version. It has a widget feel to it and sure enough it has some widgets that you can move around, add/delete as you wish. The contact viewer is also cleaner than previously. The page feeds very open and airy and a nice 2007 flavor.

They also moved the job board to the home page. Perhaps LinkedIn should look at offering a job board similar to the Job-a-matic board offered by SimplyHired.

If LinkedIn’s goal is to create a more sticky environment, why not partner with a start page provider such as Netvibes or Pageflakes and then you could actually create a very strong business networking environment.  Feeds, travel, etc. — all should be available.

From my perspective, LinkedIn still wins over Facebook for business networking. I get 7-10x more LinkedIn requests than Facebook requests. If you’d link to link me up, check out my profile.