LinkedIn's New 'SlideShare' App is a Presentation Library for iOS 8

LinkedIn's SlideShare, the "YouTube of presentations," now has its own, free iOS app, called SlideShare Presentations. The software is gorgeous, easy to use, and it's sure to appease slideshow fanatics. (They exist, right?)

The app is also built on Swift, Apple's new iOS and OS X programming language designed to make apps run, well...swiftly. If you have an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, you'll see that SlideShare takes advantage of the extra screen real estate.

LinkedIn, which has a solid track record of releasing slick mobile apps, acquired SlideShare two years ago. SlideShare has been available on Android for a while, so its debut on iOS is noteworthy. It was worth the wait, too, because SlideShare makes viewing all sorts of presentations extremely easy on a smartphone. (The iOS app unfortunately isn't optimized for iPad, and it requires iOS 8.)

After downloading the SlideShare app, you're asked to sign in with your LinkedIn account. Next, you see thumbnail images representing nearly 40 topical categories. You can use landscape or portrait modes throughout the app experience to browse slideshows and to view them. When browsing in landscape mode, for instance, you can see a presentation's first two slides side by side, as shown below.

You can follow categories and get notifications when new presentations in those categories hit the SlideShare site. You can share presentations via standard iOS means: SMS message, email, Twitter and Facebook. If you have the LinkedIn app installed and you sign into SlideShare with your LinkedIn account, you can also share presentations on LinkedIn. 

Two other features worth noting: You can save presentations for offline viewing, and a "Today" screen widget highlights the "SlideShares of the Day."

The SlideShare app isn't designed for creating presentations; it's all about easy content consumption. SlideShare really is like YouTube in that the quality of its content varies widely. Of the presentations I viewed, one was awesome (Hong Kong's "Umbrella Revolution"), some were OK, and others were, like a lot of slideshows I've endured in person, yawn-inducing.

By the way, if your business isn't posting compelling presentations on SlideShare, you're missing a good SEO opportunity. The Content Marketing Institute has a helpful blog post on this topic.

If nothing else, the new SlideShare app is worth a look if you plan to develop presentations yourself in the future. It can help you get ideas for what works (and what doesn't), and you can see which presentations have a lot of views and likes.

LinkedIn Contacts For iPhone Unifies Local

LinkedIn has released a standalone iOS app for its new LinkedIn Contacts feature that aims to help you handle your professional relationships with ease. The app has been built to let you stay in touch with your pals, family and business associates over the world’s largest social network for professionals no matter which channel you use to interact and communicate with the them. It aggregates your contacts from your iPhone Address Book, LinkedIn itself, Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook,  and brings them together all in one place, eliminating the need to use separate services or apps for the purpose. This can come exceptionally handy for those who have  their contacts spread across all these various services and would prefer to access them in one place. There’s also third-party app integration with services like Evernote to help you sync notes with different contacts across the aforementioned services. The app boasts a great-looking UI and feels fairly snappy. Let’s take a look.

When launched, LinkedIn Contacts asks you to sign in to your LinkedIn account to gain access to what it has on offer. Simply provide your credentials (email and password) and tap sign in. It also gives you an interactive tour to showcase its features when launched for the first time. In addition to get you acquainted with the app, it loads your contacts in the background. When this process finishes, you can tap Continue.

Next up, you’re asked to choose the service(s) that you’d like to connect with the app. Simply mark the ones that you wish to connect (followed by authorizing them) and tap Done at the top right corner of the screen. It should be noted that you can always connect them later on if you wish. Your contacts from all added services will now start loading up. At the far-left, there’s the Contacts tab, along with To Do and Calendar. The app does a pretty great job in letting you manage your tasks, and also includes a calendar for taking a peek at your contacts’ birthdays, recent job titles, reminders et al.

Tap a contact and you’re shown your relationship with them, their complete contact information like phone number, email and the company they are working in, the emails you both have exchanged, and other pertaining details like the source of connection, and their professional bio including education and employment history. The app loads professional info directly from the contacts’ LinkedIn profiles, so nothing surprising in there. You can also instantly communicate with a contact via email or phone without even leaving LinkedIn Contacts.

The app also lets you sort your contacts in different orders, such as alphabetic, recent or newly added, as well as via tags, companies, titles, locations, sources – in short, it provides a lot flexibility and control over how you want your contacts list to appear. The To Do section of the app lets you keep up with important events like birthdays etc

LinkedIn Contacts is available on the App Store for free and you can grab it using the download link provided below

How to Build a Killer LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn is the world’s largest online professional network, with over 300 million users worldwide. Most importantly – it’s is more than a traditional resume! LinkedIn allows you to market your accomplishments online while strengthening your professional network.

Recruiters use LinkedIn increasingly to connect with candidates. Whereas your resume highlights your career at a glance, LinkedIn paints a vivid portrait of you, no matter what your background. Since many industry leaders are active contributors to LinkedIn’s community – LinkedIn also gives you the chance to create a personal brand, be accessible to potential employers, and gain insights on industry trends.

A strong LinkedIn profile is a powerful tool to have, but is your profile doing everything you need it to do?

LinkedIn provides a blank slate to showcase your talents. However! There are 3 important points you want to keep in mind when setting up your profile. Your goals with LinkedIn are to:

Show up in a search with the right keywords

Stand out in search results

Signal that you are qualified and motivated

To achieve these goals keep in mind the 3-30-180 Rule. This refers to the time a recruiter spends with your LinkedIn profile (hint hint … its not very long!). Recruiters take 3 seconds to decide whether to stay on your profile, 30 seconds for the first read, and 180 seconds to decide on whether to contact you. Clearly, with such a short window of time, you want to be strategic! Below, we’ll outline how to hit the three aforementioned goals with this golden rule in mind.

Goal 1: Show Up in Search Results

Ensuring that your LinkedIn profile shows up in search results is all about harnessing the power of keywords. Recruiters use certain buzzwords to find candidates, so include these in your profile. This will help ensure you and your special talents are aggregated into LinkedIn’s search function.

A great place to plant keywords is in the “summary” section on your profile. This should be in paragraph form – 3 paragraphs or less. The summary tells the story of who you are – so use this blank space as a chance to highlight your resume and provide insight into your aspirations.

LinkedIn App Gets an iOS 7 Update, Mobile Endorsements

Today, it's finally LinkedIn's turn to get dressed up for the iOS 7 party. The new app falls in line with iOS 7's design changes, and LinkedIn says that it features "flatter, cleaner and more modern designs" like sharp edges and soft colors. Basically, it fits in with iOS 7's look. Most major social apps (like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, reddit) have already updated their apps to fit in with Apple's new operating system.

Ok, here's where Android users can start to listen. Both LinkedIn apps now feature endorsement capabilities. That means that you can both accept others' endorsements of you on the go and endorse your contacts on the go.

There's also a new tutorial to help new users get the most out of the service.

"For new members visiting LinkedIn from a mobile device, you will now be greeted with a step-by-step guide to help you take advantage of some of the essential tools LinkedIn has to offer. From building your network, to joining groups that matter to you, to following channels for professional news that keeps you up to date, our new guided experience will help you get the most out of LinkedIn," says LinkedIn's Duncan Osborn.

LinkedIn Mobile Apps For iOS

LinkedIn today released a revamped version of its flagship mobile app. The company has pursued an unbundled mobile-app strategy for the past couple of years, and it resulted in the release of more than 10 standalone apps. 

The core LinkedIn app was updated regularly since its last major overhaul in early 2014. However, many of LinkedIn past core features slowly shifted into single-use apps, and the company ultimately decided to develop a new app that aims to provide a more intuitive and streamlined experience around what it now sees as its core attributes.

Joff Redfern, vice president of product at LinkedIn, says the company redesigned the software to raise the app's profile among the other LinkedIn apps, as well as to integrate an app launcher feature that makes it easier to open those other apps, including LinkedIn Pulse, LinkedIn Groups and LinkedIn SlideShare. The redesign has been in the works for almost a year, he says. 

A stripped-down, streamlined experience for LinkedIn app

The new LinkedIn mobile app, available for iOS, is designed to provide an improved experience in five key areas, called "Your Feed," "Me," "My Network," "Messaging" and "Search."

Your Feed is the default home screen, and it includes news and commentary from your network based on what LinkedIn algorithms determine to be the most relevant for your industry, function, skills and conversations. You're asked to select content of interest when you first launch the app, and you can also "un-follow" topics if things get too noisy.

Me, your profile page, surfaces all activity related to who views your profile and who comments on or shares your posts.

My Network serves up a "daily briefing" of what happened in your network on a given day, including new posts and suggestions to help keep you connected or congratulate other connections on new roles or work anniversaries.

LinkedIn also integrated its new Messaging format into the app, and it's designed to provide a more casual and lightweight communication method.

Finally, LinkedIn says it improved the speed of its Search by 300 percent. Search is also more contextually aware, according to the company, and it starts to display results before you finish typing.

LinkedIn for iOS updated with Siri integration for messaging

With iOS 10, Apple has now opened to Siri to 3rd party apps. Just like Microsoft’s Cortana implementation on Windows 10, Apple now allows developers to take advantage of Siri’s speech capabilities. Today, LinkedIn released a new update for their app on iOS which takes advantage of this feature. You can now say “Hey Siri, send Pradeep Viswanathan a message in LinkedIn” to send a direct message to a contact. If you can’t remember the person’s full name, Siri can help. For example, say “Hey Siri, I want to send Pradeep a LinkedIn message,” and Siri will list all the Pradeeps you’re connected to in that network, and ask you to whom you want to message.

What’s New in Version 9.1.0

iOS 10 compatibility and new features, including Siri integration for messaging.

General bug fixes and performance improvement

LinkedIn revamps messaging experience on iOS with redesigned app

LinkedIn, the popular social network for connecting business people, has announced that its messaging experience is getting a serious design overhaul from today. Unlike the previous inbox, messages will no longer follow a traditional email format. Instead, it’s turned towards a messaging app design similar to Facebook Messenger.

LinkedIn has built everything from scratch, from the ground up with a cleaner, streamlined look with a brand new chat-style user interface. You can chat with contacts individually or send group messages, and conversations are organized around the people who are important to you. What’s more, you’ll be able to send documents, images, stickers, emojis and GIFs in your messages.

Starting today, we are rolling out a new messaging experience on LinkedIn that offers an easier and more lightweight way to have professional conversations with your connections.  We know many of you have been asking for this ability and we’ve taken a thoughtful approach to reflect the evolving ways professionals are communicating with one another today, as well as, the different ways our members are interacting with each other across our international markets.

From today, the new messaging experience will by rolling out to English-speaking LinkedIn members across the globe on iOS,. If you have LinkedIn installed on your iPhone, check the App Store for updates and you should find one waiting for you over the coming days or weeks.