LinkedIn Platform: Killing itself with closed
Want to write an application for LinkedIn that spreads between users or introduces people with similar interests? With those kinds of features closed, it’s no wonder that nobody is writing apps for LinkedIn.
LinkedIn launched its developer platform almost exactly a year ago now. It started with just a few approved application partners and has grown very little in the time since.
All told, Om Malik found a grand total of eight applications that are available from third party partners on LinkedIn. Most of them are relatively simplistic applications that will show your last few posts from another service or blog.
There are a number of hurdles that new partners would have to leap in order to join the LinkedIn platform and for little gain. The first being that you have to be approved by LinkedIn to actually gain access to the API.
Not only does this require submitting an application, but detailing exactly what you plan to create using the LinkedIn API. This keeps companies and developers from checking out LinkedIn’s API at all.
What’s worse is than the sign up process is the actual API itself. Developers can’t actually link into LinkedIn’s data set, making it a relatively feeble application platform.
Of course LinkedIn is promising that it’s going to change and that it has big things in store. But the problem is that the basic premise of LinkedIn is that it’s closed.
Because of its closed nature, LinkedIn is more a tool for keeping track of people you already know than for actually making new connections. That is, unless you pay for a business account that will allow you to bother anyone you want on the platform.
LinkedIn claims that changes to its API are coming that will improve the developer experience and might even lead to useful social applications on the platform. However the fact that LinkedIn is built on the concept of closed networks could still be its undoing.
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