LinkedIn Said To ‘Open’ In 9 Months’ Time

Word in the blogosphere has it that LinkedIn may follow in Facebook’s footsteps and provide APIs to developers. Clearly such a move would simply be an attempt to parallel Facebook’s growth (percentage-wise, of course).

But would opening up be a good thing for LinkedIn, particularly as it is the preeminent network on the Web catering to “the business crowd?” Businesspeople are after all less accepting of adventurous and experimentalist initiatives. But if LinkedIn takes similar pains to vet third party add-on submissions, I see no reason for anyone to really panic about it.

Except that the entire concept of converting social networks into Web app platforms may in fact take a steep turn for the worse before LinkedIn even gets to officially announcing its grand “opening”.

Not to pooh-pooh the progress Facebook has made in its efforts to expand its horizon, the idea of transforming what is a genuinely good and easy-to-handle product (LinkedIn) into something that could very well turn into something too complex and cumbersome to handle (which could happen rather quickly, I might add) somehow doesn’t sit well with me. Sure, I’m portraying the negative without contemplating the positive to any significant degree, but when I see what’s happened to Facebook (I’m not a member, mind you), I think: “Why did they have to go and screw a good thing up?”

I know, I know, the businessmen behind the business wanted to growth the operation, and they figured it’d be pretty great to deliver an all-in-one gem without having to actually build any additional utilities themselves. Just incorporate others’ services into their own. With the release of an API or two, they’d be golden. And, well, in the short term, it looks like they have made good on their projections.

But long-term, I can’t help but doubt the purported longevity of the model. I can’t help thinking the novelty of having everything in one place will wear thin and Facebook will go back its ordinary old self again. Or, if worse comes to worst, the entire business will lose so much steam it simply falls into the has-been bucket or fades away forever to become a mere remember-that-thing-that-was-really-great-but-then-ended-up-sucking memory.

I could be wrong, of course, and I hope I am. But I don’t think I am.

So, if LinkedIn goes through with the shift and opens up in nine months’ time (according to CEO Reid Hoffman), they should be careful how they pursue integration with third-party developments. TechCrunch’s Duncan Riley may see the benefit to an all-in-one system like Facebook, but while that particular model might look attractive this very minute, operations in this particular sector of the Web industry that stick to their roots and do not stray from their bases will in my view prove the most resilient down the line.