Linkedin unbundling: Less is focused
In this age of digital snacking, a term which refers to the habits of online and mobile users to consume content in short, bite-size quantities, unbundling digital products doesn’t seem like a far fetched idea. Nowadays, we the users don’t want an app that does it all. We want an app that does one thing and does it well.
Personally, the few unbundled apps that I’ve in my phone are Facebook Messenger, Swarm which unbundled from Foursquare and Linkedin Job Search..
For the past few days I’ve been using Linkedin Job Search app quite frequently as I’m looking for internships. I started with Linkedin and soon realised that the whole process is taxing. Every time I go to the website, I’ve to put in my preferences to see the desired job result, which eventually got on my nerves. Hence, I switched to Linkedin Job Search and life became easy all of a sudden. It’s intuitive and emphasis on the ‘one product, one focus’ strategy.
Linkedin Job Search is a customised and tailored experience. There is an advanced filter option which shows you a list of jobs based on your selection of title, location, company, industry, or seniority level. And it keeps showing you new and relevant opportunities as and when it comes.
The best part about the app is its TRACK feature which lets you check the jobs that you’ve viewed, saved and applied. This is a very thoughtful addition to the app because as an applicant, I can directly go to view and check the companies I’ve already looked up, which makes my task easier. Overall, I’ll give this app 5 stars because the whole process is easy and fast.
As a user, I am glad that Linkedin joined the unbundled bandwagon. Quoting an article that I read on unbundling, this sentence made sense when it came to big players like Linkedin, Facebook etc:
There is a lot of value in services that pull everything together in one place, but over time that value starts to recede, the lock-ins keeping people there weaken and the appeal of having separate, specialised products grows.
The trend of unbundling, which has fuelled a hyper awareness around user experience, will no doubt help companies think about what their app’s true minimum value proposition, therefore creating more focused user experiences. But having said that, I also wonder whether users would bother downloading multiple apps for multiple purposes?
