I’ve written a lot about the lack of a LinkedIn application for the BlackBerry and specifically LinkedIn’s missed deadline for releasing the application.  I mean I’ve written a lot.  Maybe I’m obsessed.  Anyway it’s reached a state in the BlackBerry community that people are taking things into their own hands. 

Jason Remillard (who is not associated with LinkedIn or BlackBerry in any way and is very careful about how he mentions the business social network in his communication and website) has produced an application for accessing your LinkedIn social network on the BlackBerry called Social Business Communicator.  It’s a bare bones application and not as integrated with the BlackBerry address book, calendar or phone as I suspect a native application would be, but it’s something and it shows the need and desire in the community for this app that was promised last year.

The application currently is just a tool for reviewing your network’s profiles and updates. Along the top of the application are three icons for My Profile, Recommendations and Network Updates, but it seems that only the Network Updates screen is complete so far and the others are still in development.  The Network Updates screen shows five activity types, each set of which can be collapsed and expanded.  They are:

1. Profile Updated – connections of yours who have made changes to their profile information,
   
2. Connection Added – people who have accepted your request to LinkedIn,
3. Status Updated – connections of yours who have updated their status,
4. Connection Updated – connections of yours who have connected with other people and
   
5. Group Joined – connections of yours who have joined groups.

In all cases the name of the connection is a link to a profile page on which you can see your connection’s name, title, current employer, location, industry, number of connections, a summary of their experience, status, specialties, interests and associations, depending on what information they have entered for their profile.  You can also email your connections directly from the application.

There is plenty to be done on the application.  It’s pretty slow and a lot of features that would really make the application useful are still in development. Based on the icon at the top of the screen it seems like viewing recommendations and maybe even adding them is a feature in the works.  Accessing a complete list of your connections would be another useful addition as would the ability to search and sort them.  Allowing you to update your status view your profile and maybe even edit it are some other feature I would like to see.  Of course the holy grail would be integration with your address book so that LinkedIn profile information is accessible directly from there.  Finally the application needs an icon for the BlackBerry application screen and better interface design.

I hate to even mention those things because the application is a labor of love for the community of BlackBerry users who understand the value of LinkedIn, but have been left in the cold by RIM and LinkedIn.  It is giant step forward from having nothing to being able to access our business social network from our business smart phone and I want to thank Jason for doing this.

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