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<img border="0" src="http://blog.wired.com/photos/uncategorized/logo_1.gif" title="Logo_1" alt="Logo_1" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; float: right;" />There's a rumor floating this morning that LinkedIn will follow in Facebook's footsteps and open up the LinkedIn platform to developers in the form of an API. Dan Farber over at ZDNet reports that LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman says the move will [happen over the next nine months][1].
[LinkedIn][2], with its focus on professional networking, seems of the surface to have little to fear from Facebook, which, thus far has focused on the decidedly less professional market of college classmates. Where Facebook connects old friends, LinkedIn focuses on professional contacts.
However, Facebook has seen some explosive growth in recent months, thanks in part to [its new API][3] and even if the two aren't yet going head to head, LinkedIn would no doubt also like to see the kind of signup numbers Facebook is reporting.
If LinkedIn does indeed roll out an API over the next few months it could be the beginning of some serious competition between the two, however, LinkedIn users who love the service's minimalist approaches might not necessarily want a bunch of developer widgets cluttering up their profile.
[1]: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=5482 "LinkedIn to open up to developers"
[2]: http://www.linkedin.com/
[3]: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/05/facebook_to_mov.html "Facebook To Move Beyond Social Networking"
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