One of my absolute favorite websites for learning about new products, or how to enhance my use of existing products is MakeUseOf. Unfortunately, they post dozens of updates each day and it can be a bit overwhelming to find updates that fall specifically into my wheelhouse. Yesterday, however, I did find a nice juicy nugget of information on LinkedIn that I wanted to point out to everyone. In the post 10 Little Known LinkedIn Features That Make It More Fun To Professionally Network, author Saikat Basu taught me a few new things about LinkedIn that I didn’t know. 

Just in case my word isn’t good enough to make you link over to the post, here are the 10 items that Basu highlights:

  1. Network with Cloak of Security (force LinkedIn to use https connections… good for public WiFi or shared computers.)
  2. Your Own LinkedIn News Daily (a very eloquent display of top LinkedIn headlines found under that “news” tab that I’ve never clicked on before.
  3. Go Text To Speech With LinkedIn News (not my cup of tea, but the SpeechIn might be something others would use.)
  4. Make Contact Without Making a Connection (initially connect with someone that may not be willing to click the old accept button from your request.)
  5. Browse In Stealth Mode (when you don’t want people to see you on their Who’s Viewed Your Profile screen.)
  6. Set Up A LinkedIn Search (Email) Alert (have your search results emailed to you periodically)
  7. Find The Right Group To Join (by using a Group Statistics feature, you could narrow down your choices of groups significantly.)
  8. Map Your LinkedIn Professional Network (very cool function from the LinkedInLabs apps.)
  9. Export Your Connections (nothing is better than an Excel spreadsheet full of contacts.)
  10. Waste Time With Tetris (AKA DropIn) (between this, Cubeduel and Snake & Ladders, you’ll waste a lot of your professional time.)
There a lots more interesting things coming out of the LinkedInLabs site, so you’ll want to go check it out right after you read the MakeUseOf post.