08 May 2009 / 0 ReTweets

The Newest LinkedIn Feature: What are Extended Logins?

Today when I went to the LinkedIn Homepage I mentioned a little message at the top promising me “a smoother experience”.  This was a pleasant surprise.  After all, LinkedIn is known to be notoriously slow by all who use it.  If  ”a smoother experience” means that it will be faster it is a welcome feature.

So what are extended logins?  Here is the way it is described straight from the source:“Ever notice that you have to log into LinkedIn a lot?  We’ve now extended logins to 24 hours, making a smoother experience for you our valued members.  Not sure how many members will notice consciously, but we hope you’ll be secretly delighted with the simplification of sign-in that we just rolled out.”

OK.  I get it.  Logins to the professional networking platform will now last for 24 hours.  In other words, if we use LinkedIn a lot and invite people, want to join a group, or perform actions that normally would have required us to login again, we no longer will see these screens within 24 hours of entering our username and password.  This is definitely a better balance between privacy and performance and should be welcomed.

But, if LinkedIn wants to provide us “a smoother experience”, why did they architect their system so that there was a need for you to re-enter your username and password so often?  It’s not like there is some evil Big Brother who created this system and LinkedIn has come to the user’s rescue.  This is LinkedIn enhancing their user experience and, in essence, telling us that they made a mistake in the way that they originally implemented their software.  We accept the implied apology here.

Hey, I love LinkedIn more than anyone in the world, so I am not trying to be critical here.  This is a small baby step forward and it IS noticed, at least by me.  And if this is a sign that LinkedIn will take a step back and start analyzing their user interface and user experience to further provide more “smoother experiences”, it will make a lot of us users very happy.

Keep making us happy, LI.  We will spend more time on your site in a more efficient way because of it.

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  • http://www.theackermangroup.com/ RE_Development_MktgPR

    As always, Neal returns valuable content on the subject of LinkedIn — the good, the not-so and the should be, could be. Agreed that the back-end architecture needs to be far more sophisticated, dynamic and progressive in order to match the demand of membership base and keep pace with cutting edge, evolving technologies.

  • http://www.theackermangroup.com RE_Development_MktgPR

    As always, Neal returns valuable content on the subject of LinkedIn — the good, the not-so and the should be, could be. Agreed that the back-end architecture needs to be far more sophisticated, dynamic and progressive in order to match the demand of membership base and keep pace with cutting edge, evolving technologies.

  • Neal Schaffer

    Thanks for your comment and I am glad that you are able to understand that I am not criticizing but am voicing the constructive opinion of many users in hopes that LinkedIn is listening, understands, and continues to evolve LinkedIn in the right way so that it lives up to its potential.

  • Neal Schaffer

    Thanks for your comment and I am glad that you are able to understand that I am not criticizing but am voicing the constructive opinion of many users in hopes that LinkedIn is listening, understands, and continues to evolve LinkedIn in the right way so that it lives up to its potential.

  • http://www.highwick.com/ Nicholas Braak

    You asked “why did they architect their system so that there was a need for you to re-enter your username and password so often?”

    My take: in an office/shared environment it prevents others from posting as you, or making profile changes.

    Though it isn’t “nice” the reality is that there are many workplaces where competition is rife, and dirty tricks can be played.

  • http://www.highwick.com Nicholas Braak

    You asked “why did they architect their system so that there was a need for you to re-enter your username and password so often?”

    My take: in an office/shared environment it prevents others from posting as you, or making profile changes.

    Though it isn’t “nice” the reality is that there are many workplaces where competition is rife, and dirty tricks can be played.

  • Neal Schaffer

    Thank you for your perspective Nicholas. You make a good point in that because LinkedIn is a professional network, there may be a tendency for it to be used in the workplace more than other social networks. Hope we don’t see any dirty tricks now that LinkedIn is reducing the number of logins you need to do!

  • Neal Schaffer

    Thank you for your perspective Nicholas. You make a good point in that because LinkedIn is a professional network, there may be a tendency for it to be used in the workplace more than other social networks. Hope we don’t see any dirty tricks now that LinkedIn is reducing the number of logins you need to do!

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