LinkedIn is moving to provide API’s that will open its platform to developers in response to Facebook’s rapid growth.
Dan Farber reports LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman saying that the move will occur in the next 9 months.
LinkedIn helped define the professional networking space, and yet today it faces the real risk of long term irrelevance as Facebook becomes the social networking platform of choice for professional networkers. Like Nick O’Neil, nearly all my professional networking requests lately have come through Facebook, and although in many ways LinkedIn provides a more focused business networking tool, its niche to Facebook’s broader offering has become its weakness.
LinkedIn isn’t dead yet; decent revenue and around $26million in funding means that LinkedIn will remain a formidable player for the immediate future. The problem LinkedIn faces is a market suffering from too many social networking options; Facebook offers a one stop shop that for many is becoming their main and in some cases their only choice in social networks. LinkedIn must evolve to compete, the move to open their platform is a definite step in the right direction.