Last November LinkedIn launched a new feature that would allow members of groups to share and discuss news articles. Last week, the professional social network offered group owners and managers another way to provide relevant news to their group by way of sharing feeds.
Managers can now create customs news feeds by adding an RSS feed, an Atom feed, or just a Web site URL.
According to a recent blog post, the idea is to give group members a “comprehensive news digest” on LinkedIn that will potentially help them discover new blogs and sources.
While at first glance the idea of incorporating feeds into the professional networking service doesn’t seem particularly interesting – many other networks have already enabled this sharing and communicating option, it may just be a great way to introduce feeds to a more mainstream market.
Sites like Twitter, Digg, Facebook, etc., have always relied on participation from a tech savvy audience; those who are already familiar with feeds, and who for the most part have already created their own customized feeds, so that the content, more than the technology is the most important component.
LinkedIn however is a little different. Its audience doesn’t comprise solely of the tech or Web savvy; many are just ordinary folk wanting to find other like minded folk for professional purposes. With this new feature, it just may be that LinkedIn will bring the feed to the masses.
You can find this feature under news tab in ‘Latest News’ if your group manager has enabled it.