SubscribeBusiness Exchange Beta Adds LinkedIn, Opens Registration
Last week, I wrote about BusinessWeek’s new Business Exchange. It’s a site the magazine’s publishers are hoping will engage – and build – its audience by giving them the ability to read, save, and add news items from around the web.
As of this week, the site is now in Beta, and you can register and try it out yourself. While you’re at it, check out Enterprise Wikis (35 news and 75 blog items) and Business Presentations (96 news and 161 blog items), the two topic pages I started.
Among a host of other refinements, perhaps the biggest is the site’s integration with LinkedIn. This connection gives you the ability to have your Business Exchange profile display data directly from your LinkedIn profile, including your current title, executive summary, work experience, and education.
This is a very smart move for two reasons. First, it saves time and duplication of data because your Business Exchange profile isn’t just another isolated profile that has to be built and updated manually. Busy workers will appreciate this.
Second, it’s a sensible connection between two complimentary services. LinkedIn wants to be the hub for your professional network, and Business Exchange wants to be the hub for professional knowledge sharing. Bringing the two together is a great way to unlock greater value from each.
If you’re wondering about the process to connect your LinkedIn and Business Exchange profiles, it’s very smooth and well thought-out. If you already have a Business Exchange profile, simply click on the link to edit your profile and you’ll be offered the option to enter your LinkedIn login information. That’s it!
If you’re new to Business Exchange, you can connect your LinkedIn profile right when you register. It’s the first option on the registration form.
The bottom line: Business Exchange is shaping up to be a formidable, and useful, business social networking and information exchange site. BusinessWeek appears to have learned a lot from the shortcomings of other social bookmarking and networking sites, and Business Exchange is benefiting from that.
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