CNN MONEY -- Dec 1 -- Reid Hoffman's MySpace-for-grown-ups is at a tipping point. These days you're either LinkedIn or left out. LinkedIn (8 million members) is all about business: recruiting, sales, investment. After a slow start, the service has nearly doubled its membership during the past year. Seeded with Hoffman's own high-powered network, LinkedIn has raced past its rivals. Sequoia Capital and Greylock pumped ~$15 million into LinkedIn. The private company says it's profitable and on track to hit $100 million in revenue by 2008. LinkedIn makes money from advertising, and services. People - mainly the site's 60,000 recruiters - pay an average of $3,600 a year for premium features. Corporate members pony up six-figure fees for access to the network. FULL ARTICLE @ CNN
Mark Brooks: fyi, Reid Hoffman also invested in Friendster early on. LinkedIn is a 'high integrity' network. By that I mean, the associations that people make on the site are likely to be real associations. High integrity networks take a little longer to build. LinkedIn will eventually be worth as much, and more, than the likes of Facebook. Facebook recently expanded it's focus by opening up to the whole world. It's no longer a school Facebook. It;s no longer special or exclusive. It will grow in the short term but lose it's core market (students) in the long term to more focused competitors. WAYN.com also took a while to build but is growing very fast now. OurStory.com will take a long time to build but will do very well also.
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