Linkedin & AOL

I picked up on this from Bill Liao's post on OpenBLOG, regarding the announcement that Linkedin was teaming up with AOL for profile integration.

What interests me here is that users of AIM, AOL's IM service, will be able to see when their Linkedin contacts (that also use AIM) are online and available to be contacted via IM.

As someone who uses Linkedin daily, I can see how this could help me develop closer networking links with my contacts. According to Reid Hoffman, Linkedin "chose AIM as it is already the most popular instant messaging service among our user base of 3.8 million business professionals".

I'm not sure how many of my contacts are using AIM for their IM; to me, Skype is the preferred option for most of my contacts.

However, I always want to keep my options open so I signed up for an AIM Screen Name and added it to my Trillian settings. Trillian is a IM client that allows you to talk to Yahoo, MSN & AIM users in one program. The basic program is free and you can get it here.

If you want to communicate with me via AIM my screen name is Davidregler1

Let's see how this one develops and I'll be interested to see how embedded IM can improve the LinkedIn experience.

David Regler
Maine Associates Ltd

Technorati Tags - Business Development, Sales Outsourcing, social networking, Linkedin, AOL