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LinkedIn dives into product spruiking

Professional networking site LinkedIn has announced major changes to the way companies interact with its site, after airing plans for a significant design and feature overhaul.
Written by Luke Hopewell, Contributor

Professional networking site LinkedIn has announced major changes to the way companies interact with its site, after airing plans for a significant design and feature overhaul.

Cliff Rosenberg

Cliff Rosenberg, LinkedIn's managing director, Australia and New Zealand (Credit: LinkedIn)

Companies will now be able to integrate products into their corporate profiles to advertise their various offerings to a specific target market. Users can then "recommend" those products and have them appear on their profile.

For example, if a professional owns or favours a particular wireless data network, they would recommend it and have it appear on their own personal page.

"Organisations will also be given greater control over staffing features around the site. Page administrators can now advertise directly from its company profile, as well as control new hires and movements within the company.

Since LinkedIn set-up shop in Sydney in November 2009, the professional networking site has attracted roughly 1.5 million users. The local operation is spearheaded by managing director, Cliff Rosenberg.

"To give you an idea of growth, seven years ago when we started, it took us 477 days to sign on the first 1 million members. The last million users took about 10 days," Rosenberg told ZDNet Australia.

"We have roughly 17 million users in Europe, 7 million in India and 30 million in North America. We're seeing very high growth rates in Australia/New Zealand, with well over 1.5 million members."

Rosenberg said that LinkedIn differs greatly to Facebook in that it focuses primarily on the development of your professional image and not social connections.

"It's all about quality of connections versus quantity of connections. It's not about joining LinkedIn and getting as many connections as you can."

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