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This new product may never make it out of research and development, but word has it that Yahoo is working on a social network called Kickstart.  If successful, Kickstart would effectively bridge the gap between Facebook and LinkedIn.

Yahoo Tests A Facebook/LinkedIn Contender

Of course, Facebook and LinkedIn are also trying to bridge that gap, and so are a dozen other companies; hence the “never make it out of R&D” bit.  Still, when CNET’s Harrison Hoffman got a sneak peek at Kickstart, he came away impressed.

“I personally think that Kickstart is a really solid concept and that it’s a possible game changer in the professional networking space,” wrote Hoffman.  “Hopefully we’ll see Yahoo kickstarting some careers in the near future.”

And that’s what Kickstart is designed to do.  By connecting college students to alumni within certain companies, the social network would attempt to give users a leg up in the job hunt process.  I’m not sure that it wouldn’t just result in some annoyed alumni - getting asked to vouch for strangers could grow tiresome - but it’s an interesting idea.

There’s no telling how much time and money Yahoo has put into Kickstart so far.  There’s also no word on when Kickstart will either graduate to the next stage of development or kick, instead of a person’s career, the bucket.