LinkedIn is finally pulling the plug on its controversial 'Intro' iOS email app in March, less than four months after it was unveiled to deepen roots into the professional atmosphere.
LinkedIn, the professional-centric social network, has decided to call off its four-month-old 'Intro' iOS email feature as the company shifts focus on long-term projects. The integration of users' LinkedIn profiles into emails did not impress users, in fact bagged serious concerns for its questionable security methods. Since users are more concerned than ever about protecting their personal information, the feature failed to take center stage. As a result, the feature will shut down, March 7, after which, users can uninstall it to revert back to the original settings.
"Intro" was announced in October as the company's approach towards bringing the "power of LinkedIn to your email inbox on your iPhone." The feature embedded an abbreviated profile with the sender's picture and brief professional bio, in an email. The dedicated LinkedIn profile bar also redirected the users to more detailed profile, including work history, other users' recommendations, and personal connections.
"While Intro is going away, we will continue to work on bringing the power of LinkedIn to wherever our members work," Deep Nishar, senior vice president of products and user experience, wrote in a blog post, Friday. "Email, where the average professional spends more than a quarter of their time, is one of those places, so we'll continue to look for ways to bring this kind of functionality to our members through existing partnerships." This means LinkedIn members can continue to use Rapportive, which works with Gmail to show contacts' LinkedIn profiles inside your inbox.
LinkedIn is also ditching its Slidecast, which helps SlideShare members upload presentations with audio. This function will no longer be available after April 30, but will not stop users from sharing muted presentations through SlideShare.net, Nishar said
The latest news comes as a relief to security experts, who initially raised the concern over LinkedIn's participation in becoming a proxy server for users' emails.
