LinkedIn's New Free Apps: Review, Part Two

In part one of our review of the LinkedIn applications platform, we looked at presentation, file sharing and travel applications that helped you collaborate with your fellow connections on the professional social network.

In this part two of the LinkedIn Apps Review, we chronicle the rest of them. You'll find some similarities to the apps in part one, and this is no accident: LinkedIn seemed intent on giving users choices based on their services of choice.

Amazon Reading List

The Amazon Reading List for LinkedIn is pretty straightforward: you share what you're reading with your LinkedIn connections. It starts by allowing you to search for a book title, such as, for example, "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

Once it pulls up the book you want, you can choose a status for it on your reading list. These status options include, "I read it," "I want to read it," or "I'm reading it now." If you click on "I read it," you also have the option to check off a box that says "I recommend it."

In addition to "Your Reading List," there are two additional tabs in the app: "Network Updates" and "Industry Updates." The first centers around books your connections are reading. You can follow specific people in your LinkedIn Connections list by clicking on the "Who's Watching Who" list.

The industry updates focus on books that relate specifically to your field that people on LinkedIn (using the Amazon Reading List) have read. This is particularly helpful if you're looking to keep up to date on your industry's critical reading.

Blog Link vs. Word Press blogging apps

There are two apps on the LinkedIn platform that allow you to share your blog. But of the two, Blog Link (made by the folks at Six Apart) certainly is more universally useful. It works for people who don't write blogs and only like to read them.

For those who do like to write blogs, Blog Link integrates with all the major blogging platforms, not just TypePad (the blogging platform by SixApart). It allows you to upload a variety of blogs based on the major platforms, including Movable Type, Vox, Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org, Blogger, LiveJournal, and others.

After you install the Blog Link app, it will cull your blog from whatever is listed in the "my blog" section of your profile (you can edit that URL by going to "accounts and settings" and clicking on "My Profile").

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

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