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LinkedIn Restricts API Usage
mpicpp points out LinkedIn's new API policy. "LinkedIn is restricting access to most of its application programming interfaces (APIs) to companies that have struck up partnerships with the social networking company. 'Over the past several years, we've seen some exciting applications from our developer community. While many delivered value back to our members and LinkedIn, not all have,' wrote Adam Trachtenberg, director of the LinkedIn developer network, explaining in a blog post the change in the company's API policy. Starting May 12, LinkedIn will only offer a handful of its APIs for general use, namely those that allow users and companies to post information about themselves on the service. After then, only companies that have enrolled in LinkedIn's partner program will have API access. Samsung, WeChat, and Evernote have already struck such partnerships. Currently, the social networking service offers a wide range of APIs, which allow third-party programs to draw content from, and place content into, LinkedIn. APIs have been seen as an additional channel for businesses to interact with their users and partners. A few companies, however, have recently scaled back access to APIs, which provide the programmatic ability to access a company's services and data. Netflix shut its public API channel in November, preferring to channel its user information through a small number of partners. ESPN also disabled public access to its APIs in December. LinkedIn's move is evidence of how the business use of APIs are evolving, said John Musser, founder and CEO at API Science, which offers an API performance testing service."
closes its API . How many slashdotters have a linkedin / facebook account ? just wondering ..
...that bloody LinkedIn would stop spamming my mail box with fictitious contacts from people I've never had anything to do with.
Why the hell they think they have some right to use my address when I've never had anything whatsoever to do with them I don't know.
LinkedIn has 2 main income streams. The first is by selling job ads to employers. These are relatively expensive (compared to other job boards) costing $250+
The other is recurring subscriptions which give you additional features. A base account can only "see" 3rd degree connections when doing a search. When you purchase a premium account you are able to get access to the entirety of linkedin's network. This is a huge difference if you are searching for a particular skill set or position.
The other is InMails. These are direct messages that you can send directly to another user without being connected to them. Until January this year LinkedIn guaranteed a response in 7 days or you got your inmail credit back. Now they have flipped it so you get a credit back if you get a response.
A full subscription account costs c$1000 a month. It tends to be used by recruiters and internal HR people the most.
Next time a client asks me to have a 'most recent post' from LinkedIn embedded on their web page (yes, this happens), I'll just be able to tell them that LinkedIn don't allow it.
FTA:
No, that's no typical at all. More typical would be to start charging for a previously free service. Cutting off access to a service which attracts people to your business is hardly a good way to "monetize the audience [you] have gained". It's more of a good way to lose business.
This is the decision of a dim-witted suit, and no doubt once LinkedIn realise it's a stupid move he'll be long gone with his performance bonus securely trousered.
The Internet was founded upon the idea of open interoperation between all endpoints and federation between different instances of the same service protocol (think of SMTP and globally interoperating MTAs). These concepts were so fundamental that they are mentioned explicitly in the IETF Mission Statement as their central goal.
Then Big Business came along, and they didn't like the concept of a level playing field of unhindered interoperation and federation. Now almost every large corporation is trying to fence off their little corner of the Internet into a private realm which they guard jealously. Other companies are denied interoperation unless they pay up (or it's denied entirely), and federation between like services is virtually unknown. There is no "Facebook service" which anyone can install and then be able to federate their content to and from Facebook as peers.
Virtually all of the megacorps today are behaving this way: Facebook, Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft, and so on. They all hate the open Internet, and have closed it off at the application layers of the protocol stack so that you have to be an enrolled member of their private realm to participate. The closing of APIs is par for the course as they don't want interoperation, and federation even less. TFS is spot on.
At least we still have federated SMTP and unrestricted search engines, although probably that's only because they're data mining our email and search queries. It's no longer the open Internet we once had, but more a system of feudal lords and their private domains, and everyone else is a peasant.
It's a severe regression of Internet utility, and it's of benefit only to them.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Now they have flipped it so you get a credit back if you get a response.
Hmm.. so now I'm wondering if its better to keep ignoring those crappy job emails I keep getting to cost the recruiters when they spam me, or to respond to them to stop LinkedIn gaining revenue from my presence.
tricky one....
I deleted my LinkedIN account because I kept getting hidden views or whatever they call it. Normally you can see who has viewed your profile, but I would get several hits and I couldn't tell.
I had a lot of information up there, and now I'm concerned that someone linked up data from a variety of sources to steal my identity. When you think about it, you can get a few answers off of a LinkedIN profile that credit bureaus ask when accessing your profile.
In that respect, LinkedIN is worse than FaceBook - which I never did.
The only reason why I even created a LinkedIN profile was because many companies do all of their recruiting there.
And even then, up there, you are your last job. Had to take a support job to make ends meet because IBM closed your whole branch down (Boca, Atlanta, etc ..) even though you have a decade of C/C++ OS development and systems experience, well, you are forever dubbed a support guy.
I love computers and CS, but I really hate this industry.
LinkedIn has 2 main income streams. The first is by selling job ads to employers. These are relatively expensive (compared to other job boards) costing $250+
That's cheaper than DICE...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is one of the walls around the walled garden. Apple controls what apps you may have, Comcast decides which websites you can go to. Facebook and LinkedIn decide what you can do on the internet, and the FBI makes sure you stay in the garden.
No surprises.
Really? I have no idea what Dice charge, wrong market and wrong location. But my average spend on job board postings was about $11 per ad depending on the site.
That said I was a volume advertiser on contract and I no longer do that as the ROI wasn't there.
If the recruiter works for an agency that has a corporate account chances are they have so many unused InMails that it doesn't matter (inmails are shared between all seat holders and you buy packs). The recruiters this has hurt are the sole operators, and frankly those are the ones you want to deal with anyway.
Personally I think it was a dodgy move because you have no way of knowing when a profile was last active but you are always charged. LinkedIn claim this will improve the quality of Inmails but I doubt it. All I see is that they are trying to give less for the same $$.
Not quite. You don't have access to contact details on that account. You can only see what their connections would see. You only get contact details when someone sends then in response to an Inmail or accepts a connection request.
Is this a common incorrect near homonym of the word spite? This is literally the first time I have ever seen someone use spike instead of spite in this phrase. Spike doesn't even make sense. It doesn't mean anything like spite and spite is even clear in the context of the parent's post. Why would you use the wrong word when the wrong word doesn't even mean anything close to what you are saying?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Now they are selling API access too. Just keep squeezing money out of every possible niches.
LinkedIn has 2 main income streams. The first is by selling job ads to employers. These are relatively expensive (compared to other job boards) costing $250+
The other is recurring subscriptions which give you additional features. A base account can only "see" 3rd degree connections when doing a search. When you purchase a premium account you are able to get access to the entirety of linkedin's network. This is a huge difference if you are searching for a particular skill set or position.
It also seems to be used as lead generation system. I get requests to connect from people I do not know and when I check they usually are in some business that sells products in my field, and occasionally some random person I have never heard of and probably sent the request in error. They get a simple "I don't know this person" and they go away. I started that after I accepted some invites and started to get "we have a product.." emails.
The other is InMails. These are direct messages that you can send directly to another user without being connected to them. Until January this year LinkedIn guaranteed a response in 7 days or you got your inmail credit back. Now they have flipped it so you get a credit back if you get a response.
A full subscription account costs c$1000 a month. It tends to be used by recruiters and internal HR people the most.
Sound like too many people were ignoring them and thus costing them money.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
And nothing of value was lost.
Who uses or cares about LinkedIn? Every single professional I know that has one, doesn't do anything with it except delete the spam they get emailed.
You appear to imply that marketing has little utility. If you are offering a product for sale, and no one knows it exists, why are you spending what it costs to offer a product?
It's called making money.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I get requests to connect from people I do not know and when I check they usually are in some business that sells products in my field...
I can't prove this, but I strongly suspect all those linkedin requests I get from unknown people are generated by robots. I closed my account recently. Say no to spam.
Definitely used for lead generation. That was kind of what I meant by position. You can search for "Head of IT" in x region with a company of 50 or more staff.
Sure, but to spell it wrong twice in the same post seems a little bit suspicious.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Definitely used for lead generation. That was kind of what I meant by position. You can search for "Head of IT" in x region with a company of 50 or more staff.
Yup, That's why when I get requests to connect from people I don't know if their profile looks like a they will be trying to sell something it gets a "I don't know this person" response.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I get a lot of those as well. It is a really really poor method of approaching someone though. It has a terrible strike rate and doesn't differentiate you at all.
Use linkedin to identify who you want to speak to. Then pick up the phone to their business and ask for them.
I need to do a sanity check on your numbers. The U.S. population is just over 300 million, including all ages, jobs, employed, unemployed, retired, disabled, imprisoned, with or without internet, etc. Out of this entire number, you are claiming that 1/3 are on linked in? That would mean that the majority of people that have jobs, have a LinkedIn account and I find that very hard to believe.
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey