LinkedIn Apps? Try LockedIn Apps.

Folks I respect are very positive about the new LinkedIn apps.

Chris Brogan says, "Run to LinkedIn and incorporate your stuff into your profile. Make sure it’s a great complement to what you’re already doing, and amp up the way you promote yourself using that service."

Pete Cashemore and the folks at Mashable put together a list of apps they want and say, "The Mashable team can’t wait to see these 5 apps coming to our LinkedIn profiles."

I don't understand the excitement.

For me, Linkedin Apps = Facebook Aps - Vampires + Your Boss.

In all seriousness, what's the difference between the two?

LinkedIn seems to be positioning its application platform as a business-ready version of the Facebook platform. Except Facebook's problem isn't business readiness. It's walled garden-ness.

When I use most Facebook apps, I have to use them inside Facebook. I have to hand over my data, then manage it within their rigid constraints.

LinkedIn is no different. In fact, it creates MORE work for me since it's one more place where I have to manage my profile.

Here's what would have been (and still would be) very useful: if LinkedIn let me get my data OUT of their site. Instead of leaving LinkedIn, I would spend more time there. I would have more incentive to put data into the system because data inside the system would have more possible functions.

If the service was robust and flexible enough, LinkedIn would become a hub of my activity. As it is, it will be a site I know mostly for its friend approval screen.

But then again, I'm pulling together thoughts quickly. Am I missing something?

Comments

[Chris Brogan...]

My answer? I'm a public speaker who now has his blog posts and his presentations displayed on LinkedIn where someone might find them, appreciate my content, and hire me to speak. Those apps have the potential of earning me lots of cash over 2009.

Way the f- better than biting chumps. : )

[FM Days]

I would also spend more time on LinkedIn if it played better with the rest of my social media ecosystem. Non-standard things like a 98 character status update are unacceptable and make me cringe.

The amazing thing is the amount of blog traffic I get from my LinkedIn network. The fact is that it is the only "social network" for many of my key important professional contacts so I'm not going to migrate these people to something more integrated like Plaxo.

[Rick Burnes]

@chris @fm days Thanks for the comments. I think you guys are both right. I'm looking at this as consumer, and am whining because now I have to maintain my profile in one more place and be subject to one more set of constraints. But if I look at this as a publisher, it's clear that my readers are on LinkedIn, and if I want them to read me, I need to do what it takes to be there, too.