
Tell HN: LinkedIn's API will be restricted next week - zthomas
LinkedIn will be drastically limiting their API next week. The grace period ends on May 12th. 
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.linkedin.com&#x2F;support&#x2F;developer-program-transition<p>One of the major restrictions is limiting the access of the r_fullprofile fields to only explicit LinkedIn partners. This is used by a lot of startups to create a great onboarding UX and minimize user data entry.<p>While this is a disruption to developers who will now have to adapt their onboarding, more importantly, it&#x27;s a major setback for millions of LinkedIn users. LinkedIn is heightening their walls and there will no longer be an easy way for LinkedIn users to export their profile data out of LinkedIn and use it for other purposes.<p>We build an online resume&#x2F;portfolio creation tool and are offering all our premium plans for free when users signup with LinkedIn until our API access to LinkedIn profiles gets turned off on May 12: 
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.visualcv.com&#x2F;?ref=freeLinkedIn<p>Before the LinkedIn API grace period ends, we would love to hear from any more startups that are currently relying on the LinkedIn API for signups and are offering a promo to their services one last time. Please list your startup in the comments below.
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lambtron
I wrote a nightmare (high level wrapper for phantomJS:
[https://github.com/segmentio/nightmare](https://github.com/segmentio/nightmare))
plugin for navigating linkedin: [https://github.com/lambtron/nightmare-
linkedin](https://github.com/lambtron/nightmare-linkedin)

Exposes a few methods. Main use case was just to traverse linkedin results.

Contributors welcome!!!

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purans
That's why I hate working with these so-called APIs, they release it then cut
it down or stop it. Never rely on these APIs to build anything significant

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clockmonster786
We built Prezence an app that showed you the LinkedIn profiles of the people
around you
[https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftw...](https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=954962586&mt=8)

For us LinkedIn integration was obviously critical. We think we can still go
forward with what API's are available but we knew full well we were building a
business on top of another business's API. So it is what it is. Can't really
say it's unfair, they built the platform. Oh well.

~~~
nailer
Have you tried contacting them and requesting access?

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Michielvv
What I'm wondering about is, what will happen if you request certain
permissions (e.g. w_messages / rw_groups ) as part of the oauth process, but
do not actually call API endpoints that require them.

The documentation just mentions the limitation in API endpoints, but I'm a bit
worried whether it could make the oauth login fail due to permissions
requested that you can no longer use.

~~~
Michielvv
Guess it is answered... yes... this breaks your auth flow... It is now
mentioned on: [https://developer.linkedin.com/support/developer-program-
tra...](https://developer.linkedin.com/support/developer-program-transition)
as well, don't remember reading that before.

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a3n
Tangent: I'm slowly working on a toy site, and I want to provide API access
(nowhere close yet).

I had thought to use LinkedIn as one of a few APIs to learn from and to prompt
thinking.

Anyone recommend a few good API-backed sites to learn from? Is HN's API
particularly good, or simple, or something?

Anything else?

~~~
faitswulff
Reddit. Append '.json' to any path and you'll get JSON. It's a thing of
beauty.

Ex:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming.json](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming.json)

~~~
a3n
[http://www.reddit.com/.json](http://www.reddit.com/.json)

Why yes, that is beautiful. :)

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dickhardt
My main gripe with LinkedIn is that the API is not even available for a fee
through their partner programs.

Yahoo! mail recently launched integration with LinkedIn data, and
Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics have integration, but no other CRM is
allowed to have access.

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cmalpeli
Glad you are calling attention to this. We
([https://jobboard.io](https://jobboard.io)) offer a feature for our users
where they can have a profile database as part of their job boards (example:
[http://www.railsjobs.com/profiles](http://www.railsjobs.com/profiles)) -
Profile creation is super easy via LinkedIn, but we've had to strip back use
of r_fullprofile. A huge pain for job seekers. We "applied" to get the
permission to use it but were denied without explanation. Sad state of
affairs.

~~~
zafarnamah
We also have a jobs marketplace and they killed our access.

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dataker
Like Twitter and other Tech 'Giants', this is insane.

These corporations assume they can do it all on their own, as they have
billions of dollars and great engineers.

Still, it's quite useless: greed is what really drives true innovation.

Good luck Linkedin

~~~
dorfsmay
I can see Twitter, they are struggling trying to monetize themselves, and I
believe they still aren't making a profit. LinkedIn on the other hand, I'm
surprised, I thought they made most of their earnings by selling greater
access to recruiters. I'm wondering what they are trying to capture here, that
they think they'll be able to make revenue from.

~~~
cmdrfred
I can see Twitter too, they never make any money as far I as I can tell.

~~~
demachina
Yea but Twitter's clients also suck and their management and engineering team
seem completely incapable of developing interesting, innovative or easy to use
clients. Their one size fits all clients also don’t accomodate power users,
many of whom are the people who generate a lot of the interesting streams that
draw users.

This should be a golden age of software but its increasingly resembling a
wasteland. Most software is being herded in to app stores which Apple and
Google completely control and dominate, and which has reached a saturation
level of app developers.

Interesting companies keep putting out awesome API’s, lure in suckers . . er .
. developers, only to crush them after the developer has sunk a bunch of time
and and money developing for them and about the time the company has developed
enough momementum that they don’t need third party developers unless they are
fully monetized partners.

And then of course there are the patent trolls.

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fourstar
Don't make your product depend on other products. It's pretty simple, really.

Follow that rule and you won't need to worry.

~~~
jlas
Most products depend on other products. e.g. Apple computers use components
from other manufacturers.

Name one product that doesn't rely on another product.

~~~
cag_ii
If a component from one manufacturer becomes unavailable (or that manuf. isn't
playing "fair"), another one can usually be sourced.

That said, I think that: "don't make your service depend on other services
without some sort of contract or agreement to provide" is a better rule of
thumb than the one above.

~~~
bdcravens
Additionally, the same model may be sourcing parts from multiple vendors (for
instance, laptop displays)

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eudoxus
ConferenceCloud: A virtual attendance platform for professional and industry
conferences. We use LinkedIn as a part of our login stuff, more specifically
the fullprofile to help us understand our attendees and add to our "Contextual
Networking" features which enables us to recommend other people at an event
that you should connect with.

Really saddened to see LinkedIn restricting this API access. It won't cause
any significant disruption to our platform, but destroys the convenience of
using LinkedIn.

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basco1185
It looks like LinkedIn is having the illusion that the profile data is "owned"
by them. Well... it isn't. If I cannot share my profile information with the
platforms I choose, LinkedIn will loose it's sympathy factor for jobseekers.
LinkedIn's decision triggered us at
[https://www.wematchit.nl](https://www.wematchit.nl) to work on a better
solution. A world where LinkedIn will no longer be needed :-)

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bshimmin
I think I'm correct in saying that for anyone who is just using
`r_basicprofile`, you won't be affected, and you do get quite a lot of
information just from that:

[https://developer.linkedin.com/docs/fields/basic-
profile](https://developer.linkedin.com/docs/fields/basic-profile)

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animex
Sounds like Twitter all over again. How soon till they are floundering and
begging developers to come back?

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dickhardt
My app (Bubbler) used LinkedIn pretty heavily as a data source. There seem to
be enough market demand that someone might be able to step in and be the new
source of professional profiles.

Does the OP have an API for taking data out for Virtual CV users?

~~~
zthomas
Right now we just have simple exports in various formats like Google Doc or a
PDF resume. We are looking to embed structured data with the PDF that we are
creating for users so that the data is always tied to their application and it
makes for really simple resume parsing.

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Jarred
Clearbit's person lookup API might be a suitable alternative for a number of
cases: [https://clearbit.com/docs](https://clearbit.com/docs)

