LinkedIn powers Ribbit Mobile Caller ID 2.0

Ed. note. This belongs to a series of posts on how web sites and services are integrating LinkedIn functionality using the recently launched LinkedIn API. Thanks to Dan Seyer, VP Product Management at Ribbit for kicking off this series in 2010! And, wish you a very Happy New Year!

Ribbit Mobile provides a brand new way to manage your calls, messages, and phones. To get started, link your mobile phone to Ribbit – a simple process that takes less than a minute.  Once setup is complete, Ribbit transcribes your voicemail to text and sends it to you via text message and email. When online, you can make browser-based calls using your mobile caller ID. Ribbit also provides you with an unlimited message inbox, where you can read, listen to, and even share copies of your voicemail, and much more.
To enhance your experience of making and receiving calls online, Ribbit offers a powerful feature called Caller ID 2.0.  We designed Caller ID 2.0 so that you would know not only who is calling but also what the caller has been sharing online.  Many Ribbit Mobile customers are mobile professionals who are active on LinkedIn, so our team jumped at the chance to get access to the LinkedIn API.
As we participated in the early LinkedIn beta process, we discovered that LinkedIn was a perfect API partner. Once we had our developer API and secret key, we quickly built our first prototype. LinkedIn is now a key part of CallerID 2.0.
Today, when a call comes in or when you make a call, Ribbit Mobile reaches into the social web and finds the recent LinkedIn updates, Facebook updates, Tweets, and Flickr photos of the person calling you. If more than one match is found, Ribbit Mobile will ask you to select the right person.


How does it work?
To use Caller ID 2.0 with Ribbit Mobile, simply enter your credentials for your social feeds during setup.

Entering your LinkedIn credentials allows Ribbit to search your professional network and provide real-time updates.
Developing with the LinkedIn API was very straightforward.  OAuth allowed us to securely connect with LinkedIn and also present a “trusted” login interface that was familiar to LinkedIn users.  This is the same approach we are taking to allow developers to create Ribbit Mobile apps with the Ribbit API.  We’re looking forward to adding additional LinkedIn capabilities to Ribbit Mobile.
If you’d like to join our beta, you can sign up for Ribbit Mobile here.  Enter the invite code “LinkedIn” and we’ll send you an invite as fast as we can.

LinkedIn for iPhone 3.0: Let’s Get This Party Started

It may be a rainy day here in Silicon Valley, but a little sunshine has just poked through the iTunes App Store.  Earlier this morning, the new LinkedIn for iPhone v3.0 app went live.

Download LinkedIn for iPhone v3.0

On the heels of the opening of our LinkedIn platform, this new version represents the next step in our efforts to bring LinkedIn to whereever you work.  Professionals are increasingly mobile, and we believe that mobile business applications are better when they are built over a platform of your reputation & relationships.  This app has been redesigned and rebuilt from scratch to help you keep your professional network in your hands, whenever and whereever you need them.
New User Experience

The minute you launch the new application, you’ll immediately see the difference.  We’ve worked to bring the most common and important features to the top of the application, to make it easy to get what you need as quickly as possible.  We wanted to make sure that even if you only have thirty seconds to spare, you can get something done.

LinkedIn for iPhone v3.0

The Power of Search

Never walk into a meeting unprepared.  Whether it’s an interview, a client meeting, or a sales pitch, now you can go into any meeting knowing who you are going to meet with, and what you have in common.  LinkedIn for iPhone v3.0 includes a completely new search interface, making it trivial to easily find people whether they are in your connections list, or one of the 55 million professionals who now belong to LinkedIn.  Whether you type in a name or keyword, LinkedIn will get you the information you need whether it’s five days or five minutes before your important meeting.

The new application has revamped the profiles screen to quickly provide you:

• A summary of details about the person
• A review of their education & experience
• A list of the people that you both know in common
• The ability to mark that person a favorite

The new Favorites functionality makes it incredibly easy to keep track of people, so you can find them later in seconds.   In addition, all of the new Updates views let you filter your updates to see only updates from your favorite people.

LinkedIn for iPhone: Profile

Your Professional Updates

Professionals increasingly need instant access to news and updates from their professional network. This new application also features a redesign of our updates functionality, giving you up to date intelligence about your network. There are now four modules to help you quickly check your updates: All Updates, Status Updates, Profile Updates, and Discussions.  You can even filter your updates to see only those from your favorite connections.

More importantly, these updates are now actionable. Based on heavy demand from our users, we have added the ability to read and submit comments on updates, right from the iPhone.

LinkedIn for iPhone: Updates

More Powerful Inbox & Addressbook Integration

The response to the recently launching Inbox on LinkedIn for iPhone v1.5 has been phenomenal. On average, our iPhone users are now checking their LinkedIn messages twice a day. v3.0 brings with it significant improvements to the Inbox, including an improved design, dashboard badging, and most importantly, support for sending invitations from a profile without the email address.

The Connections feature has been enhanced as well.  Now your connections are just a touch away, and you can easily send any of them a message on LinkedIn.  If your connection has a matching entry in your iPhone contacts, their phone numbers and email addresses will automatically show on their LinkedIn profile.  You can now also choose to download your connections into your iPhone contacts, and the application will alert you when you have a new connection who has not yet been downloaded.

LinkedIn for iPhone: Invitations

Connect In Person

LinkedIn for iPhone has added a number of new features, but we expect many will want to try out In Person.  Leveraging the new Bluetooth capabilities in iPhone 3.0, In Person allows you to find and connect with other people running the LinkedIn application in real time.

LinkedIn for iPhone: In Person

What are you waiting for?

There are too many features in the new application to detail them all here – the best way to get familiar with LinkedIn for iPhone v3.0 is to download it now.

This application represents just the beginning of our mobile efforts in 2010.   We’re just putting the finishing touches on our first native application for the Blackberry, and planning a long stretch of mobile products and enhancements in the year ahead.

If you are one of our LinkedIn for iPhone users, please join the conversation in the LinkedIn for iPhone group.  We’re very excited to hear from you and hear suggestions for new features and improvements.

Professional Networking is very Dutch

[Ed. note: This belongs to a series of posts from LinkedIn operations around the world. We recently announced LinkedIn's Country Manager in the Netherlands, Eugenie van Wiechen, who shares her thoughts on the opportunity at hand from our office in continental Europe.]

As I get settled in to our new LinkedIn offices at the World Trade Center in Amsterdam, I can’t help but think of my first interview for this position with Arvind Rajan, our vice president of international operations. He told me that of the 55 million professionals on LinkedIn, the member base in the Netherlands was one of the most active and highly engaged groups with the highest number of LinkedIn members per capita outside of the U.S.
Echt? (English: Really?)
That’s impressive.
As I dug deeper into LinkedIn’s proposition to professionals around the world, it made plain sense why my peers have taken to online professional networking.
Last week, Hari Krishnan, our country manager based in Mumbai, launched our India operations with the objective to connect all of India’s professionals. Here in Central Europe, the bar is just as high. By creating programs and partnerships to raise awareness and engagement with LinkedIn in the Netherlands, I believe we can help Dutch professionals succeed in the new decade and beyond and put them on a path to business and career opportunities that otherwise may pass them by.
We already have a strong team here on the ground in Amsterdam. Our near-term focus will be to establish local partnerships and ramp up our general operations. Critical to that will be hearing from you on what we can do to make LinkedIn more helpful to you in your business and career in the Netherlands.