LinkedIn worth a $1 Billion Valuation?
Many of you may be using LinkedIn already, if not, LinkedIn is a professional networking site. You connect with people you know and they connect with who they know. This way the network grows and now LinkedIn boasts that around 20 million people are in its database. All the people voluntarily keep their profiles up to date. If you want to reach a person in Company X, you find a path through your network of contacts each of them then relays your message until you reach the desired person. Depending on who is in your network it is just 2 hops and can take more hops if you don’t have connections to the desired party.
The company makes money by providing a job board and fees to getting introduced to unknown people. I don’t know how much revenue they have but according to an article on TechCrunch, the current round of funding values the company at a cool $1B. Now I don’t know if it is really worth that much. I think a lot of people signed up for curiosity thinking it will help in the future. Now whether they are actively using the network on a regular basis is unknown. In my personal case, I use it occasionally just to keep up with what my contacts are doing. I used the network very sparingly to reach someone. We will just have to wait and see if the company continues to thrive or the usage patterns tail off once the novelty wears off. Is this part of a new bubble? I don’t know.
PS I wanted to check something out on LinkedIn.com while composing this post but the site is presenting a blank page! Perhaps the support folks are busy counting money 
Update 8.28 am: It’s back to serving regular content:
