I was recently at an event held here in Vancouver by Hootsuite and Anthony Risicato (Head of Global Channel Sales) at LinkedIN was there to talk about digital marketing, some strategy and social marketing. At the beginning of his presentation he introduced new software that had just been released by Linkedin called Find Nearby.
Find Nearby is a tool within the LinkedIn mobile application that allows you to quickly connect with anyone else at an event that is also using the feature to broadcast that they are at an event.
A couple things I found interesting about the tool itself:
- It’s great that it’s within the LinkedIN mobile app and not another needed application.
- The app ONLY broadcasts that you are at an event if you click on the tool within the application. This means that just because you have a LinkedIn profile, or are using the app at a conference does not mean that people will be able to “creep” your profile or connect with you.
In my opinion this is something that has been needed for quit some time.
Dating apps have been utilizing location and geotargeting to connect people by location for some time. Some networking applications have tried, but in my opinion not done a great job of utilizing the same technology to connect like-minded colleagues or peers for networking purposes.
LinkedIN already has the user base, so it was a natural fit and is a great feature.
