The thing about useful stuff is: LinkedIn should introduce IM chat

LinkedIn should introduce IM chat Friday, January 09, 2009

Image via WikipediaI hardly ever use Facebook, occasionally logging in just in case anyone has left me a message. Yesterday was one such occasion and whilst I was online, I was contacted by an old work colleague who I'd "friended" on Facebook sometime ago via the online chat facility. Off the back of that chance conversation, we agreed to meet up to talk about his new business.

It struck me that LinkedIn should really look at doing something similar. Whilst it's not a "social network" site, in my experience lots of business stems from chance conversations and having the facility to drop a quick IM "hello" to connections who happen to be online would be a valuable feature.

Having already added an address book facility to add more info about a connection, it is perhaps a natural extension to allow real-time interaction on the site. Importantly for LinkedIn, it would perhaps encourage people to spend more time on the site and increase it's value to advertisers.

As an aside, I've also been using a service called SocialMinder lately which I intend to write about separately, but in brief it's a cut-down CRM hooked-up to LinkedIn. This is something LinkedIn should definitely buy or replicate.