
Intro for iPhone – No Longer Supported - EGF
https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/47196/ft/eng
======
codegeek
Thank you LinkedIn. Good riddance. While you are at it, how about
fixing/retiring the following things as well:

\- Endorsements. They serve no purpose other than "look I am so cool" and for
recruiter to find you by keywords that does not make much sense. Plus I have
no interest in getting endorsed by my uncle for something he has no clue
about.

\- Groups: These end up being nothing but recruiter spam.

\- Stop the spam of "Please join linkedin premium trial for 30 days". I get
this email every other week. If I am interested, I would have joined by now.
Don't you get it.

\- And the classic one. It is ok for you to spam my gmail contacts but I
cannot even send a group email to _all_ my connections at once (you have a
stupid cap)? One use case is that during the Christmas/new Year time, I like
to send a note to all my contacts saying hi. Yes not very pesonalized but for
me the whole point of linkedin is to stay in touch with my professional
connections. Guess what ? You limit the number of connections I can send a
note to in one message. really ?

~~~
colinbartlett
I found a great way to cut down on this spam: Delete your LinkedIn account.

I removed mine 3 years ago and I never once regretted it.

~~~
joeframbach
I removed mine about the same time frame too. No regrets. It has not hindered
my networking or hireability.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I just applied to several jobs within the last few days; Jobvite lets me "one-
click" apply with my LinkedIn profile, which is so much easier than those
"upload your resume and we're going to mangle it in our web form".

Disclaimer: Received several calls back same day/next day, in my mind that
means its working as its supposed to.

------
dangrossman
An open-source version of the backend code would be pretty awesome, though. It
was a smart idea even if it wasn't well-suited to the use it was put to.
Wouldn't it be neat if you could have extra contextual info added to your
e-mails without having to install anything on your phone or mail client? It
could be made modular so whatever services you use could provide plugins you
could add/remove at will -- CRM, lead tracking, sender analytics (this person
e-mails you 3X a week?), Amazon links for products, social network profiles,
etc. If you host it yourself, you don't have the privacy issues of (another)
3rd-party having access to your mail.

~~~
giovannibajo1
Totally agree. Instead of just erasing the source code, they could release it
as open source. I for once would love to play with it.

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stephen
It was admittedly a good hack for getting into the otherwise non-customizable
iPhone mail client.

I feel like if a scrappy startup had done it, it'd be innovative, but with LI,
well, the reaction was not that great.

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hawkharris
LinkedIn's biggest problem can be traced to a single line of code: the
placeholder that reads, "I would like to add you to my professional network."

The joy and excitement of real-life networking stems from meeting someone,
recognizing that you share an interest or skillset, and connecting on the
basis of that skill or interest.

For example, if I discuss JavaScript w/ a developer at a networking event, I
keep him or her in mind for my next JS project. With in-person networking, I
know not only _who_ is in my network, but _how_ and _why_ they might want to
collaborate.

By allowing for a meaningless, generic prompt, LinkedIn strips the excitement
out of networking. It makes the game about quantity more than quality. Users
end up with broader networks, but they fail to understand the meaning or
potential of those connections.

~~~
jchendy
Isn't LinkedIn supposed to be for maintaining contact with people you've
already met? So you should already have experienced the excitement of meeting
the person before you see the boring generic message.

~~~
RegW
Due to less than reliable content of my profile, I sometimes get connect
requests from people I have never had anything to do with.

It would be rude not to accept.

P.S. Then of course they get an amusing email every time I update my Headline

~~~
bcbrown
It is not rude to decline a connection request from someone you do not know.

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ProAm
I wonder if this was killed because of low acceptance, or because of the
privacy and security concerns? Did Apple ever speak about this being any type
of concern?

~~~
mik3y
I'm guessing low acceptance. It was an interesting hack, but honestly, could
you picture anyone clamoring for this feature? And _then_ getting past the
setup steps?

Frankly I thought it was a pretty shocking product to launch, for all the
predicable reasons it was panned, until I contrived a more charitable
explanation: LinkedIn management is willing to greenlight goofy "20%-style"
projects by the engineers.

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techinsidr
Good! Intro is a Security and privacy disaster:

[Podcast: Understanding the Dangers of LinkedIn Intro]
[http://www.securityweek.com/podcast-understanding-dangers-
li...](http://www.securityweek.com/podcast-understanding-dangers-linkedin-
intro)

------
mhp
I wonder if

\- Apple told them they had better stop

\- Adoption was lackluster

\- The privacy complaints overwhelmed any benefit

(or all three)

~~~
lrei
Adoption.

Not that many people care/are aware about the privacy/security issues at
stake.

It was too much of a niche thing (i.e. not for iphone's "average" users) and
from a big enough player that Apple wouldn't protest.

But it was a complicated and long process to install/configure it. I doubt
many non-geeks bothered. So it probably never got any traction beyond a few
thousand users. Not worth keeping around at Linkedin's scale.

------
smoyer
The most interesting thing I notice about this announcement is that LinkedIn
is using an Oracle product to do their customer support. I'm getting tired of
sites that don't allow my back button to navigate away from them.

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mrfusion
What is intro? I tried looking around their site but I didn't see anything.

~~~
AH4oFVbPT4f8
[https://intro.linkedin.com/](https://intro.linkedin.com/)

Send your mail to them to let them rewrite the html to insert LinkedIn
information within the message.

Intro shows you LinkedIn profiles in your iPhone Mail app.

[http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/10/23/announcing-linkedin-
intr...](http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/10/23/announcing-linkedin-intro/)

------
Bluestrike2
Well, that didn't take too long. I still can't get over the idea that their
engineers thought it was a good idea in the first place.

~~~
orbitur
I don't think their engineers are the ones who thought it up.

~~~
Bluestrike2
No, you're most likely right.

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igorgue
Really? Wasn't it because of the security and privacy concerns pointed here
many times?

