LinkedIn is the latest social network to offer integration with Twitter, according to Twitter's blog post about the LinkedIn integration as well as LinkedIn's blog post on the topic; Twitter and LinkedIn refer to their integration as "the perfect combination" - but is it really that? Are Twitter and LinkedIn, both profoundly different social networks, really going to "get along" as well as Twitter hopes they will? We're not so sure.

The thing about LinkedIn is that it's a profoundly professional social network. Absolutely nothing like Facebook and Myspace, LinkedIn is almost devoid of the more inane elements of social networking - there are no "pokes," no distracting games, no applications - LinkedIn is purely driven by networking, and designed specifically to further the role of social networking in the professional world. Users have to describe their relationship to one another, and are strongly encouraged to input their work history to facilitate the process of finding and adding workmates. A far cry from the somewhat more playful atmosphere of other social networks, LinkedIn is the preferred social network for hard-hitting professionals; you won't find any compromising photographs, or meaningless status updates - at least, not until now.

Now that Twitter is integrated with LinkedIn, does this spell the beginning of LinkedIn's downfall from a social network known for it's professionalism to just another "time waster" in the eyes of professionals? Quite possibly. The problem is that most people don't use Twitter "professionally" - i.e., people tend to be very personal on Twitter, and their status updates often have nothing whatsoever to do with their professions or networks - to be frank, Twitter is full of a lot of "fluff" - which is exactly what's missing from LinkedIn.

Once LinkedIn users start integrating their LinkedIn accounts with Twitter, they'll be able to update their LinkedIn statuses directly from Twitter - meaning that you're probably going to see a much faster cycle of LinkedIn status updates; additionally, the content of those status updates is going to become significantly more "dilute" - meaning that there's likely going to be a lot less substance and a lot more fluff.

On the other hand, it's a possibility, albeit a distant one, that the Twitter/LinkedIn integration will have the opposite effect - that Twitter will begin to have more substance and less fluff as a result of Twitter users knowing that their Tweets will be showing up as LinkedIn status updates. It's possible - but I wouldn't count on it.

One great feature of the integration, though, is the ability to only integrate particular tweets, ones that are marked with the #in hashtag. That means that astute users who understand how the feature works can avoid the "fluffination" of their LinkedIn accounts by only integrating the tweets that they want to. If enough users are aware of the feature, then it's highly likely that people will be able to use the Twitter/LinkedIn integration positively and with little negative effect - and in general, LinkedIn users are fairly savvy, so it's possible that they'll pick up on the hashtag feature pretty quickly.

Currently the Twitter/LinkedIn integration is one way - meaning that you can update your LinkedIn status from Twitter, but you can't update your Twitter status from LinkedIn. We're not sure if they're planning two-way integration in the future, but given the rapidly increasing number of social networks offering two-way Twitter integration, it's entirely likely.

As for me, I'm going to sync up my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, just to try out the feature - but you can be I'm going to be using that #in hashtag to make sure I selectively update my LinkedIn status.