14 DAY TRIAL // It's hard to make any progress in social networking without opening up the service to outside developers. Even Facebook, arguably the most closed off social network, knows this and has made the most of its Facebook Connect offering. Now LinkedIn is looking to do the same with the announcement that it has finally opened up the site with the launch of a series of APIs aimed at third-party developers and services.
“Starting today, developers worldwide can integrate LinkedIn into their business applications and Web sites. Developer.linkedin.com is now live and open for business,” Adam Nash, LinkedIn VP of search and platform products, wrote. “This is the beginning of a new set of opportunities for the LinkedIn platform, and we look forward to seeing the integrations that developers will launch in the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned for additional enhancements over during the coming months as we learn and grow this platform together.”
The APIs have been a long time coming, having been announced more than two years ago. And this was made worse by the fact that the platform has been greatly anticipated by many developers. There are plenty of social networks out there and plenty of them have interesting API offerings for developers, but none of them has the data the LinkedIn has got and access to this information is the real prize of the launch.
Unfortunately, while the 11 APIs offer some interesting opportunities, there are still several areas where the platform could have been better especially after the long wait. These 11 APIs can be grouped into three main categories, in terms of functionality. First, developers will be able to allow users to log into their LinkedIn accounts using the OAuth standard and retrieve all of the data and information available to them, which can then be integrated into the apps.
Not only users will have access to the information, but developers will also be able to build features so that users can update their data or add new one, including the possibility to post a status update or message one of their contacts. Finally, LinkedIn has also opened access to its search engine, so third party services and apps can use it to find and retrieve any public data available on the social network.
The APIs open up several possibilities, but there are those who expected more from the social network. First, the existing APIs seem to be geared more towards Twitter-like features broadcasting, marketing and the likes, and less on accessing the valuable data. Then, there are some restrictions in the way the data available can be used as developers can't build apps or services that mimic LinekdIn functionality. Still, LinkedIn says that new features are on their way and some of the concerns may be addressed as the platform matures.