LinkedIn deploying new JavaScript API with OAuth 2

10/13/2010 12:15 PM by Chris Toohey

I recently signed up as a LinkedIn App Developer, which gave me an shiny new API Key to allow me to leverage LinkedIn for application authentication via OAuth with some pretty slick results. Really makes SaaS/Cloud authentication easy when you're leveraging a business-specific social network vs. something like Twitter or Facebook.

Now leveraging LinkedIn is even easier...

Introducing the LinkedIn JavaScript API!

Our new JavaScript API is now available to all developers! With just a few lines of JS, you can import a compact framework (~25KB) that provides full access to our REST APIs along with new Login and Share buttons. Everything works directly from the user's browser and we handle OAuth 2 for you - so no need for manual request-signing or re-architecting your backend. You can have a "Sign in with LinkedIn" button up and running in 10 minutes.

Early Access

Our JS API is brand new, so we're releasing it to get your feedback. In the coming months, we'll be adding features and enhancing functionality. Of course, we'll do our best not to break anything, but please understand that this is a beta release. Stay tuned to the developer blog for updates.

You can find out more information online at http://developer.linkedin.c om/community/jsapi .