LinkedIn Adds Professional Photos

Posted on September 28, 2007

Adam Nash, the senior director of products at LinkedIn, has announced the addition of photos to the LinkedIn social network. Nash provides screenshots of his photo and LinkedIn profile as an example. The post says users can choose whether or not their photo will be viewable by the public.

However, before we could add photos to the site, we had to give considerable thought to the best way to integrate photos into a professional site. Privacy is an incredibly important issue to us, and we wanted to make sure we had the right controls in place. As a result, all members will have the option to control whether their photo is visible to their connections, their network, or everyone.

The post also says LinkedIn expects the photos to be professional because LinkedIn is a service for business professionals.

We know that people take their professional reputations seriously, and as a result we expect LinkedIn profile photos to be professional in nature. However, we also hope that the wisdom of the millions of LinkedIn users will help us identify photos that violate that. Similar to LinkedIn Answers, members will be able to quickly and easily flag photos that violate policy for review.

Photos and videos are one of the first things people think of when they think of social networks so it isn't surprising that LinkedIn now has photos. VentureBeat asks, "Why did it take four years to add a feature already offered by every other social network?" It appears that the reason behind LinkedIn's resistance to photos was because they wanted to make sure the website would remain professional. LinkedIn clearly doesn't want the types of photos you are likely to find on social networks like MySpace, MyYearBook and Stickam.