LinkedIn Intro Adds People's Employment Info to Your Inbox

Today, the strictly business social network LinkedIn launched a new product in its mobile lineup: LinkedIn Intro. This app essentially implements the LinkedIn information of your co-workers and colleagues into the proprietary mail app on Apple devices: your iPhone, iPad, etc.

Primarily, it allows you to see a person’s company and position (as recorded on their LinkedIn account), and lists it below their name in an email thread for easier referencing. If you tap on their information, it’ll expand to showcase more information, including their work experience, connections on the network, and everything else LinkedIn touts on a profile.

If a user doesn’t have a LinkedIn account, no additional info will be overlayed. In that same vein,  you don’t even need a LinkedIn account to use LinkedIn Intro. Currently, LinkedIn Intro supports Gmail, Google Apps, AOL Mail, Yahoo Mail, and iCloud-based email accounts. LinkedIn has stated that neither they nor their app have access to your actual email information, just permission to overlay data on top of it.

The app and its corresponding backend service is built on Rapportive, a social emailing service that LinkedIn purchased early last year. If you’d like to sign up for it, you can do so here. You’ll receive a text message on your phone to get started, just as shown above.

Pulse, the news reading app that LinkedIn also purchased earlier this spring, is now the company’s only content brand. In simpler terms, it syncs with your LinkedIn account and suggest news articles and media content worth checking out based on your LinkedIn behavior. You can share any articles you find on Pulse onto LinkedIn (and others if you really want to). According to The Verge, who spent time with the application, the app has a “more modern, iOS 7-inspired aesthetic.”

Pulse will launch “soon” on iOS and Android. LinkedIn Intro is available now.