Innovating LinkedIn with Talking Images.

Talking with Angus.

An innovation which +Angus Grady and I are working on, based on Angus's original ideas for better engagement, is the concept of using "Talking Images" for LinkedIn posts. The "video" below is an example. Here we used a Talking Image to reply to a comment on one of our joint LinkedIn publications.

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These audio files, posted as videos, do work very well on LinkedIn in the newsfeed, on Pages and Profiles and in Pulse publications. In those places, they play in-situ (embedded) and seamlessly, in the same way you can listen to the audio here while also reading this at the same time.

They are, unfortunately, not so effective in LinkedIn Groups, where a video post just creates a link. They don't seem to play embedded,  but just takes people right out of the Discussion to youtube. This simply does not compare with Google+ where the audio-video plays right there, to Facebook, where even comments can be Talking Images, or even to Pinterest.

Indeed, I find the implementation of Group Discussions on LinkedIn increasingly frustrating and limiting. Perhaps this is why they are becoming just places where people drop links? Those tiny thumbnail graphics are so limiting and cannot be used for effective infographic communication. The lack of embedded video/audio play is a significant barrier to full and free electronic communication. This almost forces people to link drop if they wish to exploit the full advantages of modern and  effective multi-media tools. I do wonder why the implementation of the newsfeed is so different?

For me, right now, the most pleasant User Experience for discussions is in Google+ groups. That's one of the reasons Angus and I decided on Google+ for our LinkedIn Users support forum and not a LinkedIn Group.