Business social networking site LinkeIn redesigns its mobile app

Business social networking site LinkedIn has redesigned its mobile app. The iOS and Android app, which had failed to click with users has been reduced to five core functions: Your Feed, Me, My Network, Messaging, and Search.

The new version of the business social networking site's flagship app is ''more intuitive, smarter and dramatically simplifies your LinkedIn experience,'' Joss Redfern, vice president of product for LinkedIn, said in a blog post. The app, which was available as preview since October, can be downloaded from the site.

The changes in the new design include the home tab, titled `Your Feed'. This section of the app hosts content that had been curated by LinkedIn and targeted at individual users. ''It's based on what we determined is most relevant for your industry, function, and skills combined with what conversations and content you care about,'' Redfern said.

The `Me' section is basically the app's profile page, where users can view and make changes to their personal information and they would also be able to see related information, such as which other users had viewed their profiles, who had commented on them, or shared their posts.

'My Network' shows updates from users' contacts with a card-like layout. According to commentators, the card feature makes it easy to congratulate a contact on a new job by making it more visible. However they say users would be more interested in getting updated when someone users knew got a new job, or an existing contact moved to a company that was of interest to users.

One useful feature of the network tab was that it allowed users to sync their calendar and, ahead of a meeting, the app would provide a snapshot of the person that one was meeting, such as shared interests and contacts, to help users find some common ground.

According to commentators, LinkedIn claimed its search feature was now faster by an order of 300 per cent but it seemed hard to quantify it that way.