LinkedIn announced what they call “LinkedIn Intelligent Application Platform” earlier today. The platform will offer 2 ways to integrate with LinkedIn: first by using their APIs to build widgets than can augment the functionality of an existing site and secondly by building the application that gets hosted on LinkedIn website using OpenSocial API.

As of now there aren’t many details available about the platform there isn’t much that developer can start working on. This announcement is just to let their intentions and plans reach wider audience. The only tangible thing I came across was this screen shot showing a BusinessWeek application that identifies those people appearing in the article who are on your contact list.

One striking difference to LinkedIn’s approach to hosting application from that of Facebook (apart from OpenSocial support of course) is that they are going to have complete control over the kind of applications that get hosted on the website. This is quite different from Facebook’s model of registering any kind of application and just letting Facebook know where your application is hosted. So no Vampire bites or Food Fight permitted

This no-so-open platform is actually something they need if they want LinkedIn to be a leader in business and professional networking. Here is what their blog site says for those willing to write applications using this platform:

… to get involved with the Intelligent Application Platform either for APIs, widgets, or hosted applications, send us an e-mail to developers@linkedin.com telling us what you want to build and what you need to build it.

However, using the API in another application in order to get access to user’s contacts, profile etc should be available without any restriction.

Here is a video showing a short interview with Lucian Beebe, Director of Product Management at LinkedIn about this launch.