LinkedIn is revamping its painful messaging service

LinkedIn has been the butt of many a design joke in recent years, and it’s caught a lot of flak for its clunky one-to-one messaging interface.

You couldn’t read entire threads at once in your inbox and until recently, it was hard to tell if you had actually responded to messages. The business social network says it’s fixing all that today, as it rolls out a new messaging experience on Web and mobile.

The company says its new communication tool looks more like a mobile messaging app — like Facebook’s Messenger, if you will — and includes modern features like the ability to send stickers and GIFs, as well as attach photos and documents.

Plus, you can now message a group of contacts at once — handy if you want to coordinate a catch-up at your next conference or ping a bunch of colleagues.

LinkedIn says it plans to keep improving the messaging platform:

We’re excited about concepts like intelligent messaging assistants that can help suggest people you should message or provide you with relevant information about that person before you start a conversation. Or the possibilities with voice and video to make conversations more compelling.

The update will roll out later today for English-language users on LinkedIn’s Web interface as well as its Android and iOS apps. The company says it will become available in more languages in the coming weeks.

➤ LinkedIn [Android | iOS via LinkedIn Blog]