The social media website LinkedIn launched earlier this year a social news service that they hope will broaden its appeal among its users. The move, aimed at buttressing its efforts vis-à-vis other social networking sites, will allow users to view and share articles from among their connections or from colleagues. The move is largely seen as the company's attempt to drive a Twitter-style networking site that allows for quicker and easily accessible information on each user's news feed. Although only launched in the beta version, the new LinkedIn Today service gives users the ability to aggregate popular headlines being shared by their connections. Already, users are saying it could help keep track of their specific industry with ease and without bogging down their feeds elsewhere. The LinkedIn Today service can be filtered using one of 22 industries, by company, geography or within a member's specific professional sector. Senior Product Manager Liz Walker said the idea is to give users the ability to track down and view top stories in a short period of time. She said that through the new service, unlike Twitter or Facebook, a user can curtail their feed to their very specific job-related needs. The new initiative is all part of LinkedIn's efforts to push forward on viability ahead of an expected public launching later this year. Competing with Twitter, Google, Facebook and other social media networks is difficult, but this industry specific news feed could go a long way to separating it from other options available online. Even still, the company says it has no intention of attempting to compete with Facebook. The idea instead is to allow career-based news to flow more easy without being bogged down by non-sector related material and articles. Deep Nishar, LinkedIn's senior vice president of products and user experience, said that this is how people can begin to search for new jobs. He argued that by allowing users to focus on one industry, it will create a system that is more fine-tuned to the needs of each individual. BM
