MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Aug. 19 (UPI) -- California-based social networking service LinkedIn announced Wednesday the release of LinkedIn Lookup, a new tool that will allow professionals to learn more about their coworkers.
A blog post by LinkedIn staffer Ankit Gupta said that the new LinkedIn app "makes professionals more productive and successful by helping them easily find, learn about, and contact their coworkers."
The app was developed after the company found that only 38 percent of professionals said their companies' intranets were sufficiently effective at helping them learn more about the people they work with. Additionally, they said their job performance would increase if they could search for coworkers with specific skills. Joining that logic with stats which show that 46 percent of professionals look up coworkers on LinkedIn, the company developed the iOS app which is now downloadable from Apple's App Store.
The app can search for other coworkers by department or team, and will also show the contact info for coworkers that have chosen to share it. Individuals who work in the same company can see each other's contact information without also making it public on the regular LinkedIn website. If they have chosen not to share it, an individual can send them a message via the Lookup app without being connected on LinkedIn or counting against the limited number of InMails that Pro users can send.
The company argues that their product does not compete with office chatroom services like Slack or Hipchat, despite the fact that Lookup offers messaging features. Rather, the app is part of the company's suite of programs, including LinkedIn Elevate (released in April), aimed at making LinkedIn a part of businesses' daily usage as opposed to just a place for job hunting.
The app may bring increased traffic to the California-based social network.
