I received an email from Stack Overflow today asking me to fill out a new Careers 2.0 profile today. After finishing I have to say, they provide a very slick process for populating my profile, in a meaningful way, that was very easy, and is an approach other networks need to adopt.
Like any other profile I was able to add my name, link, description and tags. But then I notice that I’m able to connect using Github and LinkedIn. Both networks I use daily.
Using Github I’m able to import repositories that I’m currently maintaining via the social coding platform. Stack Overflow allows me to choose which repositories I to show, displaying the name, description, date repository was created and other vital statistics like number of followers and times it was forked.
Next I click on the connect to LinkedIn, and I can select from my work history and display my resume as I’ve built it on LinkedIn. This really helps, as LinkedIn is the only place I maintain my work history. Using LinkedIn via the API centrally like this, just make sense.
After Github and LinkedIn I’m able to add books that I’ve written or influenced me using the Amazon API. Additionally you can link to your Stack Exchange profile and fill out entries for your education, certifications as well as what you’re reading, apps and tools you use.
I like the tools that Stack Overflow provides to assemble my resume. It acknowledges the role both Github and LinkedIn are playing in my technology career, and makes your vital data portable using APIs. Beyond the areas Stack Overflow provides I would also like to have photos from Flickr, Tweets, blog posts from Wordpress or Tumblr and other important information via platforms I depend on in my professional career--something easily done with Singly. But as it is, I really like the Stack Overflow approach to building online profiles.
I would like to see this same approach to populating my other app profiles, ability to login with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Github, then allow me to connect various, relevant pieces from other platforms into a single, meaningful profile without redundancy.
