Lately, Microsoft's changes to LinkedIn have revolved around tying the social network to the Redmond company's other offerings for professionals, with the Resume Assistant released earlier this year being a prime example of that. But today's announcement focuses more on the core functionality of the social network.
LinkedIn is powering up its direct messaging capabilities, bringing new features and improvements to mobile apps and the desktop website alike, though the former seems to be the bigger focus of the update.
The biggest news for desktop users is the ability to easily paste images from the web or from screenshots directly into the chat window to share it with someone. Additionally, there's now an emoji picker built into the website for the less formal conversations you might have on the platform.
Mobile users are getting the biggest benefits in today's updates, starting with the ability to stretch the compose box to fill more of the screen, which should make it easier to write longer messages. This is also coming to the desktop in the next few weeks, but it's exclusive to mobile devices for now.
The LinkedIn app for smartphones will also now allow users to attach files in messages, which was previously only possible through the website. It's unclear if any file type is supported, but the announcement mentions support for DOC, XLS, PPT and PDF files, which already covers a few bases when it comes to business, such as resumes, presentations and data charts.
Group messaging is also smarter now, and the app will present contacts from your current company or schools you went to when creating a new group. It's also easier to remove people from a group, with a new option under the three-dot menu at the top of a group conversation.
Lastly, LinkedIn is adding @mentions to the messaging app, making it easier to call out specific members in a group, or just sending someone's profile to another contact in a one-on-one conversation. This is presumably coming to both the desktop and mobile versions of service, but we're not seeing it, or any of the other announcements, on the website yet. It could be rolling out gradually to users, so don't be too surprised if they haven't shown up for you either.
Are these features useful to you? Have you received them yet? Sound off in the comments below!
Via: MSPU
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