Why #IMissOldLinkedIn and LinkedIn's Reaction on It.

Two days back my LinkedIn got updated "BRAND NEW" I was excited about this change as most of my fellow colleagues and friends were using it already. I heard a lot about the new UI. I even got to use my friend's updated LinkedIn to get the feel of its new UI. At that time, I didn't go too deep and kept waiting eagerly for my LinkedIn profile to update. It happened and the excitement level was over 9000! I started using it for the same purposes like before. Slowly, I realized that the new LinkedIn was slower than the older version. I'm talking about that fancy "skeleton screen" below:

It is SAD! Absolutely SAD!

Due to the slow speed, my usage of LinkedIn got reduced. Hold on! It is not just the speed that ruined my experience and reduced my time spent on it. Removal of many important features is another rather the biggest reason for it.

Important features removed from New LinkedIn:

1. The user profile page has been made concealing.

It shows only top three skills and to see the rest of them you need to expand the drop down. I miss the older look of the "Top Skill" section!

Compare it with the older version and you will feel the pain.

Fabulous! Wasn't it? Simply putting the numbers is not enough! Those last 12 endorsements, creating a collage altogether used to create an impact on visitor's mind. Well, time to say goodbye to it! :(

Accomplishments are again vague. It is time to forget those flashy certifications and projects that we used to flaunt as all of them have been made hidden behind drop downs again.

Check out they were making the profile page look lavish in the older version:

But wait! That's too soon to feel nostalgic as there are a lot of other features that have been made unavailable to free users.

2. Recent activity page has become complicated

The recent activity page has been made unnecessarily complicated and a lot of screen space has been wasted no both the sides. Here's a screenshot of the same:

Tell me why you did this? It has become so difficult to navigate the pulse articles now. Almost half of the screen space has been wasted. It could have been utilized to make the articles section easy to navigate. Or at least there could be a search option to find the old pulse articles. The tabbed view of Articles, Posts and All Activity looks fine though.

3. Advance search is no more.

You cannot use the advanced search anymore and that's the biggest change. Now you can't filter searches by keyword, first and last name, title, and location. They have also removed the "Search Posts" filter which I personally miss the most. They have removed all these great options from the search page. What is left for free users is the ability to filter search results by the level of connections (first, second, or third), general locations (no zip codes), companies, industries, profile language, non-profit, language, and schools. You can also groups, companies, schools and job too. You are supposed to upgrade to the sales navigator profile in order to use those features. Moreover, the Boolean search doesn't work as effectively as it used to in the older version.

After finding all these changes with a heavy heart I opened Twitter to find the ones with same feelings. Here's what I found:

And many more are there!

And here's how LinkedIn reacted to my tweet which contained my dissatisfaction and disappointment.

More issues in the 'New LinkedIn' as found by Greg Shamieh:

1. Most graphics do not display properly. Icons and logos have their aspect ratios clobbered so they display as something smashed and unintelligible -- and usually OVER the text that they accompany.
2. Embedded information boxes which display linked social content have been 404ing since day one.
3. Pop-ups for profiles which would come up and allow you to identify the employer and position of someone on the platform -- are gone. The only way to get more info is to access the profile.
4. Thread ignore, unfortunately, necessary with some of the social or political noise on the platform -- simply does not work. Ignore a thread and it comes right back anyway.
5. The display of comments on any post is turned off by default. One needs to click through just to see a 'list' of two comments with the comment truncated to 80 characters. If one really cares about what other users are saying this sure isn't how one would do that. 

More issues:

1. If your profile name has an icon like '??', users will not be able to access it from the desktop. The profile flashes for a second and then it redirects to a page saying 'The profile is unavailable'
2. The new profile is hard to navigate. Now you are required to click more number of times in order to access anything.

What do you think? How will LinkedIn respond to its users' disappointment? I would like to hear your thoughts on this drastic change made by LinkedIn.