

LinkedIn Platform launch - amilr
http://blog.linkedin.com/2009/11/23/linkedin-platform-launch/

======
olefoo
The Terms & Conditions make me leery. I have an app that would be a very good
fit for their niche and user base but reading the T&C doc
<http://developer.linkedin.com/docs/DOC-1013> was a bucket of cold water to
the face.

Restrictions like

h Charge, directly or indirectly, any incremental fees (including any unique,
specific, or premium charges) for access to LinkedIn’s Content or your
integration of the APIs in your Application;

or

i. Use the Content in any advertisements or for purposes of targeting
advertisements (whether such advertisement appear in your Application or
elsewhere);

or

m Use the APIs in an Application that competes with products or services
offered by us;

Those are a big red flag, and tell me that LinkedIn is not serious about open
participation. It seems that they fear the possibility of one of their API
users making money without giving them a cut. This makes their API deeply
unattractive to me, what if I have some success w/ my app and they decide to
do something like it.

It seems like they would be happy to shoot partner apps in the head in order
to eat their lunch. And that means that linkedin api integration takes a back
seat to pretty much anyone elses.

------
spif
Great that they are moving to a more open approach finally allowing _all_
developers access to their API.

However it's not as good as it seems:

1\. There is no support for contact details like phone-number, email etc.

2\. The API is read-only, and that sort of beats the purpose of this API.

(At least judging from the limited documentation available at the moment.)

~~~
pie
Wow, this API has been a long time coming.

It looks to me like there are write operations for status, activity stream,
friend invitations, and direct messaging. I'm not too surprised that LinkedIn
does not offer all the contact details.

Phew. This documentation is organized in a somewhat annoying fashion.

~~~
spif
Yeah I'm not surprised either about the contact details, however if you are
authenticating all users via oAuth that should negate the risk for a big part.

Imaging Google not allowing you to see the email address via their
ContactsAPI, that wouldn't make sense...

------
rgrieselhuber
Does anyone still really use LinkedIn? I keep my profile updated because they
have strong SEO but a surprising number of my business contacts prefer to stay
in touch on Facebook.

