LinkedIn Mines Twitter StreamsLinkedIn Mines Twitter Streams

LinkedIn has launched in limited beta a service that lets users glean relevant information from Twitter streams of members of the professional social network.

Called Signal, the new feature will be rolled out gradually over the next few months, giving the site time to collect feedback and analyze usage patterns, Esteban Kozak, principal product manager at LinkedIn, said Wednesday on the company's blog. Besides filtering the massive volume of tweets, the service will also let users track relevant status updates posted by members on LinkedIn.

The Signal page has three columns. On the left is the list of filter options, in the middle are relevant updates gleaned from streams, and on the right are "trending links." The latter are the most popular links being shared within a person's LinkedIn network and on Twitter.

The service offers eight main filters for navigating a stream. It can be done by industry, company, time published, geography, region, school, hashtags, or network, such as only a person's primary or secondary connections on LinkedIn.

In addition, a person can search for specific keywords or topics within a Twitter or LinkedIn stream, or search for the updates of a favorite public personality or specific colleague. A person can also set up alerts so they can be notified of updates to a stream being monitored.

With trending links, a person can also choose to see who is sharing the most popular links. So, for example, if a person posts a blog on his company's site, he could see whether people are sharing the link and who they are.

LinkedIn has about 70 million members, and executives from every company in the Fortune 500 are represented on the site. Three-quarters of the members of the network are university educated and 50% of are in decision-making positions, according to SharesPost.

The company, which is privately held, was valued in July at $2.26 billion. LinkedIn earns revenue through its premium subscription business, ad sales, and corporate recruitment services.