Holiday Surprise: LinkedIn Removes Activity Feed from User Profile Page

Posted on by Joe Hertvik

linked mulitples***Note: since this article was originally printed, LinkedIn reinstated the ability to view individual activity feeds from user profile pages in May 2014. To read about how LinkedIn restored this ability, check out this article.***

***Original article from December 2013****

As of December 2013, LinkedIn removed the activity feed from your LinkedIn full profile page.

The activity feed allowed you and anyone viewing your full profile to see all your recent activity. It was a valuable feature because it was the only place on LinkedIn where your connections could go and see all your status updates, profile changes, posts to discussions, new connections, etc. in one place. As such, you could see what other people were up to and people could view your LinkedIn posts without a lot of hassle.

Here’s LinkedIn’s announcement about the removal.

With the Activity Feed removal, there is no other LinkedIn function for anyone to view all of these items for an individual user, except to search them out one at a time through the LinkedIn home page.

I contacted LinkedIn Help about the removal and they were ambiguous about why they removed the activity feed from the full user profile. Here’s the tweet they sent me explaining why they did it.

LinkedIn - 12-30-13 tweet on removing activity feed from LinkedIn profile

This is a rather ambiguous answer and doesn’t really explain why they felt they had to remove the feed or more importantly, what other better experiences LI users can expect now that the company no longer has to support the activity feed on user profiles.

Here’s what LinkedIn tweeted me when I asked whether there was a chance the feed would be added back in the future or whether LinkedIn would add another feature allowing users to see all the activity for an individual user.

linkedin conversation about activity feed on 12-30-13

So the end result is that LinkedIn’s profile page activity feed is gone. There are no settings you can tweak to put it back, and LinkedIn has no plans to return or replace this function in the future.

There is a partial fix to view only your LI profile’s activity feed. LinkedIn provides instructions for viewing your own (but not other users) activity feed in their announcement about the removal. I’ve also published the LinkedIn URL you can use for viewing your own activity feed and the shared updates and group postings of your connections (see below).

RELATED: Finding All Your Current LinkedIn Activity

RELATED: Filtering Your LinkedIn Connections Shared Status Updates

RELATED: URL to View All Group Activities for Your LinkedIn Connections

IMHO, this is a bad move on LinkedIn’s part and diminishes LinkedIn’s value to their users. If you also believe this was a bad move and would like to see this capability expanded or added back, I recommend contacting LinkedIn and complaining. They are diligent about monitoring the @LinkedInhelp and @LinkedIn and you are likely to get a response from @LinkedInhelp, if you contact them.

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About Joe Hertvik

Joe is the owner of Hertvik Business Services, a service company providing written white papers, case studies, and other marketing content to computer industry companies. He is also a contributing editor for IT Jungle and has written the Admin Alert column for the past ten years. Follow Joe Hertvik on Twitter @JoeHertvik. Email Joe for a free quote on white papers, case studies, brochures, or other marketing materials.
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12 Responses to Holiday Surprise: LinkedIn Removes Activity Feed from User Profile Page

  1. mercurie80 says:
    January 4, 2014 at 12:31 pm

    I also think removing the activity feed was a very bad move on the part of LinkedIn. I know that various people visited my profile to see my updates. Now I’m worried that my updates will be lost on the feed on the main page. Honestly, I have no idea why LinkedIn would remove what was a very useful tool for their users. I’ve already complained to them through both feedback and Twitter!

  2. Tom Humbarger (@TomHumbarger) says:
    January 6, 2014 at 11:29 am

    Joe – I totally agree with you that this is a bad move. BTW, the activity feeds are still available on the mobile and iPad versions of LinkedIn. I also complained to LinkedIn Enterprise Help (since my company is a corporate client), but received pretty much the same answer.

    Here is what they sent me:

    “I will make sure to place your additional concerns in the feedback request that we have submitted on your behalf. As for the activity feed on mobile devices, The mobile team is currently evaluating the experience, but in the meantime, the activity feed on the profile from LinkedIn’s mobile phone and tablet apps will continue to be accessible.

    Thank you again for your feedback, and I also apologize for any inconvenience that this change may have caused.”

  3. Rick Belden says:
    January 6, 2014 at 11:58 am

    Hi Joe. Thanks for this post. There is another discussion of this issue ongoing on LinkedIn at:

    http://community.linkedin.com/questions/119052/status-updates-on-my-profile-page-are-missing.html

    I’ve yet to see one positive comment about the removal of this popular and critically important functionality from LinkedIn. I can’t begin to imagine what they’re thinking they’ve accomplished by doing this.

  4. Doug Lehman (@douglehman) says:
    January 6, 2014 at 2:51 pm

    Joe thanks for sharing this. I noticed this as well and reached out to LinkedIn. Being able to monitor posts and activity from connections provided a resource to share and be social. Your post is right on point. Happy New Year

  5. Helena Martin says:
    January 23, 2014 at 4:37 am

    We agree!! Unbelievable that they have removed such a basic need for social networking sites.

    Join our campaign to get LinkedIn’s attention and bring the activity section back!

    Follow us to keep up to date with our progress and latest social media news: linkd.in/1bfMF9R

    View and share our campaign image here: http://bit.ly/1f34Lkj

    We’ll soon be posting a short article on the topic on our LinkedIn page, and have started the #OMGLinkedIn Hashtag on Twitter.

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