Facebook Won’t Like This LinkedIn News | Wired Business | Wired.com

This is the “business casual” of serious social network news.

LinkedIn might be the uptight suit of social networks, but it seems it wants some of the casual, after-hours club flair that is Facebook. Witness the news LinkedIn will add notifications, a productivity-undermining feature that lets you know when someone views your profile or “likes” something you’ve shared.

The notifications, which consist of icons and color highlighting in LinkedIn’s navigation bar, ape a very similar feature on Facebook. LinkedIn rolled out the notifications on its website, but says they will soon come to its iPhone, iPad, and Android software.

It seems odd for a workplace social network to deploy such an intentionally distracting feature. “You’ll never miss a comment or update to an engaging discussion about a news article or trending topic on LinkedIn,” the company says of notifications – as though that’s a good thing.

via Facebook Won’t Like This LinkedIn News | Wired Business | Wired.com.

LinkedIn Rolls Out Polling for Groups

I moderate a group on LinkedIn.com for the New England Sociological Association. While I don’t have an immediate use for the feature, I’m sure that it will come in handy, or that some member will find a use for it.

Aiming to spur more conversation among its one million Groups, LinkedIn on Wednesday announced Polls, a new feature that’s designed to get a quick read on an issue.

Ian McCarthy, principal product manager at LinkedIn, wrote via the LinkedIn Blog that the feature came about after Group Moderators shared that they were looking for “easy, time-sensitive ways to generate conversations within the group.” Apparently, such conversations weren’t happening quickly enough after Moderators posted articles or blogged their thoughts. Polls was devised to get more conversation flowing.

Although McCarthy addresses Group Moderators in his post, anyone in a Group can create a poll. However, Moderators can restrict the creation of new polls from their Group Settings.

via LinkedIn Rolls Out Polling for Groups.