"We wanted to pick applications that would provide utility and help the productivity of our users," says Mario Sundar, the Community Evangelist at LinkedIn. "The technology behind our partners [who provided applications] had to be well-proven before we added them."

LinkedIn added in total, all focused on helping users share business information with their colleagues and contacts,

Google, for example, provided its Presentation application, allowing LinkedIn users to share -like presentations from a meeting or tradeshow with their connections. Amazon offers an application that allows users to share what books they've been reading with their connections.

Keeping in line with its business focus, LinkedIn has employed a conservative strategy around adding third-party technology, a departure from its consumer-oriented competitor, Facebook, which to date claims has more than 24,000 applications on its platform. Though that number sounds staggering, the majority of third-party Facebook applications cater to entertainment interests (such as games) rather than business productivity.

To shield itself from the liability associated with its wild west ecosystem, Facebook offers sweeping disclaimers in its that essentially absolve the social network from being held responsible for what third-party application providers do with user information.