LinkedIn is taking something from Facebook and Twitter’s bag of tricks, as they try to make their website a bit more profitable. Microsoft’s business networking social website has introduced new auto-play video advertisements, which they’ll be selling to drive up their ad revenue. These auto-playing ads are often run at a premium compared to banner ads and could help improve Microsoft’s bottom line with the social network dramatically.
LinkedIn started letting users upload their own videos back in August, so the addition of these advertisements is a fairly natural progression. Microsoft will begin selling these ads to a small group of selected advertisers, before bringing it out to everybody who’s willing to pay for them.