Improving LinkedIn's Usability

As a long-time user, I've found LinkedIn very valuable in not only nurturing my professional network but also in researching job opportunities and job functions of current employees in target companies. They filed an S-1 with the SEC on Jan 27, 2011 as the first official step on the road to an IPO. LinkedIn is looking to raise $175 million and use the net proceeds in, among other things, further product development. Here are my thoughts on improving LinkedIn's usability and further its relevance to users.

Over the years, I've added almost 500 contacts to my network but it has been ages since I worked with most of them. I recently located a contact in a target company and we were related to a mutual contact who I requested to introduce me. It turned out that my friend worked with that person a few years ago and has been out of touch. It would be useful if LinkedIn shows a recency indicator for each connection. Users can use that either as a reminder to reach out and strengthen the connection or to retire the connection over a period of time. Fewer strong connections are more useful than many weak connections.

"Jobs you may be interested in" - only the 8th job opportunity suggested is the first one in my location. Tweak the prioritization of results to weight local jobs higher, perhaps run an A-B test to measure conversion. Along that same vein, if I've run keyword searches in the past, factor that into the recommendation. The current algorithm appears to disregard that, making the list less interesting.