LinkedIn, the social network you check when you hate your job, now lets you send voice messages to business contacts.
The totally not-at-all-awkward feature launched Thursday on LinkedIn's mobile app, where you'll find it with the chat tool. You can only send messages from your phone, but you can listen to them on the app or LinkedIn's website.
The messages let you prattle on for as long as a minute -- plenty of time to read your resume or demonstrate your beat-boxing skills. It also avoids the awkward back-and-forth of a phone call while giving your prospective employer an idea of what you'd sound like on a podcast.
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LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft (MSFT), offers more practical ideas. It suggests using the feature while walking or multi-tasking, for example. And it thinks the tool will help you forge more personal connections with business contacts.
People love making fun of LinkedIn, and its inescapable emails telling you "Seth sent an invitation on LinkedIn." But the platform has 562 million members, and it is popular among recruiters, HR types, and other business professionals.
It's also the least scandal plagued of the social media platforms. You don't hear about election interference or creepy ads. (Although it did experience a massive data breach traced to a Russian hacker in 2012, and some attempts at catfishing.)
And its new voice feature comes as people are less and less likely to use traditional voicemail -- a tool LinkedIn doesn't think is dead yet.
