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A social network showdown is coming. LinkedIn, which aims to track your business and professional connections, has rolled out a new developer platform and already the majority of the web press is comparing LinkedIn's efforts Facebook's platform. It's a fair comparison, but there's one key difference between the two - LinkedIn's platform is actually useful.
Where Facebook's platform provides a proprietary programming language for developers to build applications that run inside the site (so you can send you friends a fresh pair of virtual diapers or whatever), LinkedIn has created a platform in the sense of what the word used to mean - a way of mixing, mashing, repurposing and sharing your data. Think Flickr, not Facebook.
The LinkedIn platform, known as the LinkedIn Intelligent Application Platform, consists of two parts, a way for developers to build application that run inside your LinkedIn account (via OpenSocial) and the far more useful and interesting part - ways to pull your LinkedIn data out and use it elsewhere.
As an example of the second half of LinkedIn's new platform, the company has announced a partnership with Business Week which will see LinkedIn data pulled into the Business Week site. For instance, if you land on a Business Week article about IBM, the site will then look at your LinkedIn profile (assuming you've given it permission to do so) and highlight the people you know at IBM. Call it six degrees of Business Week, but it does something Facebook has yet to do - it connects your data with the larger web.
With Beacon having recently blown up in Facebook's face - something that's become a trend for the site, violate privacy, weather user backlash, violate privacy, weather user backlash, violate privacy, weather user backlash - LinkedIn's new platform couldn't come at a better time. Frankly, it reminds us of the good old days when the data you stored on websites was actually yours and you could pull it out and do interesting things with it.
Many of the gritty details about the new APIs haven't been released yet, but we can tell you that the LinkedIn platform uses REST-based APIs and will have access to data like your profile, your network, other LinkedIn profiles, network feeds and more. So far LinkedIn hasn't released anything detailing the actual API methods.
And never fear, if you're not a developer or programmer, LinkedIn has promised it will "widgetize" the more popular API-based apps, which means cut and paste code will be available for pulling your LinkedIn data into whatever site you'd like - possibly even Facebook.
For those of you that actually find value in sending your social network connections virtual pi???a coladas and the like, don't worry, the LinkedIn platform includes a component for developers to build and run OpenSocial powered applications within the LinkedIn interface. However, all applications will need to approved by LinkedIn, so it's more likely we'll see useful stuff like conference calendars or job listing apps than virtual drink swapping.
If the promise of an API isn't enough for you, LinkedIn has also unveiled some changes to the site which are live right now. A new "company news" feed can be embedded in your LinkedIn profile page to pull in hot news about relevant companies based on your profile and connections.
Your profile page also has three new modules which can be embedded in your account (this is how internal applications built on the LinkedIn platform will be added as well). The new People Search, Job Search and Answers modules are largely self-explanatory, except perhaps the last, which pulls in question and answers in from other LinkedIn members on whatever topics you specify.
LinkedIn may lack some of the buzz and magazine cover hype of Facebook, but kudos to LinkedIn for taking inspiration from APIs like Flickr's rather than the much touted, but still essentially useless, Facebook platform.
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