Like any social media feature - there may be great benefit (or some, or little, or none) to LinkedIn's Pulse feature. It depends on you, and what your purpose for using their platform is, your goals. It does not benefit everyone, but it may be of great benefit for some users.
Canonical URLs do not relate to the Linkedin Pulse, they are only useful as a means of explaining duplicate content on your own domains. A canonical link in the header of or metadata of any URL declares which copy of two or more essentially similar content URLs you would prefer to have shown in search results. Read more from Google: [developers.google.com...]
This recent discussion explains more about the purpose and proper use of canonicals: [webmasterworld.com...]
It is not a good idea to simply paste the same content from your own domain on other platforms, that can cause your own site to be considered the copy. Yes, even if you published long before your content was shared.
