While the company is the go to place to find a job or network with business, it is not a place where you would drop a status update or an image about your latest meal. People head to services like Facebook and Twitter to meet those needs. LinkedIn thinks it can compete with more established social networks. The company has been adding new features to come closer to social aspects. The latest is the addition brings video support to LinkedIn. The company started testing the feature last month, but it is now rolling out to all users. Video uploading has been a feature on the Android and iOS with this update. For the desktop and web versions, live streaming is also available, rolling out over the coming weeks. Members can manage videos they upload with various analytic tools. For example, users can see the location demographics of viewers, like numbers, views, and comments. Importantly, it is possible to see which companies are viewing your videos. Since Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn, the network has been expanding its feature set. First and foremost, these features target the enterprise users on which the system was built. However, it is easy to see how a video support introduction will help draw in social media users.
Social Spread
However, and this is probably important, there is not much for a normal user on LinkedIn beyond its business attributes. In other words, video support is not going to bring in people unless they need the network for business use. Indeed, it is becoming clear that users are willing to spread their social activity around niche sites. Facebook covers their social activity, Twitter will cover short bites and news consumption, while LinkedIn is the de facto business network. Each of those rivals (and others) are pushing into the space of others. However, perhaps customers do not need or want a single network that does it all. Let us know in the comments below what you think.
