Web site spokeswoman Kay Luo said the outage was related to the update, but she declined to elaborate. Earlier, she said the site had higher traffic than usual after the new features launched Thursday.
LinkedIn also had brief, scheduled outages Wednesday and Thursday, Luo said, in part to allow it to roll out the features.
Among other additions, the new features let LinkedIn's 19 million members broadcast their daily activities to their connections, much as the "status" feature at the social-networking site Facebook does.
Gates started promoting LinkedIn this week by setting up a profile and soliciting suggestions on the best way to encourage more young people to pursue careers in science and technology.
By focusing on professional relationships, LinkedIn
distinguishes itself from social playgrounds like Facebook and News
Corp.'s MySpace, where users are encouraged to share their personal
lives by posting party photos and adding favorite bands.
