LinkedIn Flexes Its Search Engine Muscle, Adds College-Finding Tools For Students - Ingrid Lunden, Tech Crunch

Last year, LinkedIn widened the net for potential users when it started to allow high schoolers to join its social network for professionals, and today it’s launching a clutch of features that it hopes will get them to stick around a while longer: three new tools — Decision Boards, University Outcome Rankings and University Finder — focus on college-bound students who are deciding where to apply, what to study and people who might give them some useful advice on the way. And while the company has been doing a lot of development on monetising and advertising and premium membership, these are areas that are not getting touched in the new tools, the company tells me: “This is free for all people and universities cannot pay for better placement,” a spokesperson told me in answer to a question about sponsored placements (a la Google in its search results). “These rankings are based on the career outcomes of LinkedIn members.” http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/01/linkedin-flexes-its-search-engine-muscle-adds-college-finding-tools-for-students/