Professional networking site LinkedIn has posted its most shared stories of 2011. It wasn’t YouTube videos that were shared the most, it was stories that focused on making you a better worker and employer. The topics ranged from how to motivate your employees, to tips on setting up a successful day for yourself.

The top shared stories by its 130M users show that the site is all business, no play. Here are the top ten most shared stories on LinkedIn from 2011:

1. 9 Things That Motivate Employees More Than Money (Inc.) Nov. 28
2. Steve Jobs and the Seven Rules of Success (Entrepreneur) Oct. 14
3. Steve Jobs: How To Live Before You Die (TED Talks) October
4. The World at Seven Billion (BBC) Oct. 26
5. Four Destructive Myths Most Companies Still Live By (Harvard Business Review) Nov. 1
6. 5 Things to Do Every Day for Success (Fast Company) March 1
7. Tech Firm Implements Employee ‘Zero Email’ Policy (Yahoo News) Nov. 29
8. The Org Charts of all the Major Tech Companies (Humor) (Business Insider) June 29
9. Here’s How People Look at Your Facebook Profile — Literally (Mashable) Nov. 30
10. 5 Ways To Keep Your Rockstar Employees Happy (GigaOM) Oct. 15

Steve Jobs clearly had an incredible impact on LinkedIn professionals, especially ones focused on Technology, as the top ten list shows. No stories about his passing specifically are on this list, but as the months have gone by, never before seen videos have trickled out to the media, complete with new meaning.

Last month, we wrote about the new version of Path, dubbed “Path 2″, and we pointed out that by looking at the numbers of active users who have connected with Facebook, there were only 30,000 a month. It wasn’t that impressive, which is probably why Path completely redesigned the app.

Just two weeks later, things seem to be looking up for Path, according to the same source we used last month, Facebook.

Since the app is built for private sharing with up 150 of your closest friends, it’s difficult to see an outside network effect that would indicate sizable growth. The app is featured on Apple’s App store, though, which more than likely has given the company a boost. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the company also got a huge amount of attention from tech media as soon as it was available for download.

To clarify where these numbers come from, Facebook has a public listing for any service that allows its users to connect to it, and shows it as an app in a search result. The social network then shows monthly active users who have connected to Facebook using said service.

On November 29th, here’s how Path was faring with active users who had connected to Facebook:

As of today, it looks like things have picked up quite a bit, with Facebook showing 250,000 monthly active users.

That’s nearly 9x growth in just two weeks.

This doesn’t tell the whole story about Path’s potential and growth, since users don’t have to connect with Facebook. But it does show that since the redesign, the app is fairing much better with active users on the platform who have connected with the network.

Tr.im, perhaps the loudest of the small URL shortens has stopped shorting URLs today, at long last.

We all recall their history of screaming bloody murder when Twitter picked Bit.ly as heir apparent to the venerable TinyURL, their attempted self sale, their open source fling, and now their demise. Rollicking tale.

But it raises a larger questions than just what effect of king-making Twitter has on the third-party Twitter application community. What are we, the webs application users of the world, to make of the smaller apps online? There are so many, often wonderful, web applications that just never hit critical mass. They just don’t make it.

So when they fold up, ala Tr.im, we are often left with lost data, lost application connections, lost preferences, and are forced to jump ship to their larger competitor that we had possibly been avoiding due to a certain flaw (that we find) in their product. We are forced up the size scale, if you will.

What does this do to smaller applications? It makes everyone hesitant to use the smaller products, making the small app creators have an even more difficult time finding their audience. This moves against the democratization of, well, everything online. I have an idea.

We need a more formal app/user guideline, that everyone could come together and create. It would outline certain expected standard of data portability and shut down procedures to ensure that everyone can use applications with at least some level of assurance that their stored data is safe, and mobile.

That we do not have something like this means that when another Magnolia comes around, we will be able to say nothing more than “well, damn.”

This would help both application developers and users. Users feel more comfortable (because they are safer) using smaller apps away from the mainstream, meaning that developers can more quickly find and grow an audience of users. More small apps from more developers means that more seeds are planted to eventually grow the next big applications.

At least if you are a developer, outline to your users what will happen if eventually you decide to shut down your application. Being upfront is always better. Especially if you are a new app with a small group of hardcore users. Let them know the whole plan, including the bad points. They will appreciate your honesty.

Goodbye Tr.im, we will miss you. Let’s just hope that the shutdown goes smoothly.