What is the distinction between Share and Activity in LinkedIn v2 API

Question

I read the LinkedIn v2 API half the day, but couldn't wrap my head around what exactly is the distinction between a Share and an Activity?

When I fetch shares via https://api.linkedin.com/v2/shares, I get objects having a share id / urn (e.g. urn:li:share:6432959801428316160) and an activity urn (e.g. urn:li:activity:6432959801868713984). For both urns I can fetch the same like/comment count via https://api.linkedin.com/v2/socialActions.

The activity urn is described as "Urn of the activity associated with this share", but I couldn't find in the docs what exactly an activity is, in particular compared to a share.

Montemontefiascone

did you get any joy with this query? – Spancel

@Spancel Well. I still don't know an exact answer. My guess is, that Activity is more or less a legacy concept, since UGC posts do not have a direct reference to an Activity (though they still seems to be related to an Activity). I try to stay away from Activities and that seems to work out ok. Whats your take on the matter? – Montemontefiascone

Answer 1

The best that I could find in the documentation:

Activities act as a wrapper around shares and articles to represent content in the LinkedIn feed.

There is an API endpoint to find the share urn identifiers for activity urns.

Augean