Voting buttons are the buzz. The ability to share blog articles along to sites like Digg, StumpleUpon, Reddit was in essence your way of telling the author that you liked their article. Enter Facebookâs Like button, the game changer. The confusion that was created back in April over the fan pages, community pages and the like and link was explosive. I like a page and you link me to it and everyone that also likes the page? After the dust settled and we realized that we could opt out of instant personalization, the like button took on a life of its own. Blogs added the like button and on some, the number of likes has surpassed the number of tweets. Whoever would have thought that likes would garner more attention and clicks than a tweet? Facebook was not done and the like button has now found its way to comments. A simple little button that says Like, has now found its way to LinkedIn but with a few additions.
LinkedIn New Group Discussions
LinkedIn is starting to roll out a new format for the group discussions. Discussions of simple asking a question have been revamped to allow for links to be added so you can share articles and get a conversation started. Does this pave the way for News to be deleted? Could be as this would be duplicate content the News will not be as interactive and conversation friendly as the discussions.
The new discussions seem to be going in the direction of being more forum like as you can ask a question from the group members but also by sharing links you are able to showcase your value to the group by sharing knowledge. Forums have long practiced this way of doing business as helping people and solving their problems is the basis for a forum.
LinkedIn Voting Buttons
The dicussions have also added voting buttons. The like button has also been joined by the Pass, Comments and More buttons. Like a comment that someone wrote or just enjoyed the link, simply click like or if you found that the discussion was not to your liking, share your thoughts with the pass button. While the like button is very Facebook, LinkedIn took it a step further and gives users a voice by being able to let others know that they were not fond of the discussion. 
Additional Group Discussion Features
1. Content Sharing. As stated above, you are now able to add links to discussions. The discussions will be categorized and searchable.
2. Discussion Scroll. At the far right and left of the discussion box there are arrows forward and back to allow users to scroll through the dicussions with a snippet of the discussion.
3. Featured Discussions. The manager of the group can feature a discussion whether it be one of their own or a shared discussion to create a conversation around the discussion.
4. Most Popular. Looking to see what the group seems to favor and wants to discuss? The discussions will be categorized by the most popular with a photo display of the last 3 group member who have commented. To view their comment, roll over their photo. Looking for every comment all in one place so you can reply back, click the article headline.
5. Your Updates. Not sure if you have shared something already? Now you can view all your updates with a simple click on your photo. Here you can see what has been added to the discussion you created, the discussions you joined into as well as the discussions you followed. This is a very convenient and useful tool as the days of going back into each discussion to see if there are any updates has been eliminated.
6. Jobs. Some, not all of the groups have job boards. If you have a job that that you only want posted to a specific group and not to all of LinkedIn, you can post simply by clicking on the job tab and adding the job (so far, it is free but this could change down the line).
7. Top Influencers. This feature will focus on the the group members who are most active in the group. While this could lead to abuse in as much as someone looking to get to the top of the list, it nonetheless is a great tool to see which group members are actively engaging the entire group and could be a worthy connection.
LinkedIn New Group Discussion Tutorial
LinkedIn is really making strides to increase conversations on their platform. I see this as going in the direction of being more forum-like to further engage users and focus on connections. LinkedIn has come a long way from being just a job seekers billboard to now being a place to not only find qualified candidates and employers but to build a business.
What do you think? Is this a step in the right direction?