socialmedian: What’s happening at LinkedIn? Is it getting bought?

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What’s happening at LinkedIn? Is it getting bought?

Source: VentureBeat

May 05, 2008

Summary

Something’s up at business social network LinkedIn. The Mountain View, Calif. company’s board meeting last week went way over the scheduled time, and sources tell us there’s some “good” news coming. The details are still hazy, but worth noting because of the ongoing rumors swirling about the company’s long-term plans.

Last fall, reliable sources said that News Corp was negotiating to buy LinkedIn. The purpose of that acquisition, according to sources, would be to integrate LinkedIn’s network with News Corp. newspapers like the Wall Street Journal. Hopefully, this would help New Corp to revive its declining print-media ad revenue through online initiatives.

However, we’re told that deal was dead of last week, because of News Corp.’s purchase of Newsday. Wall Street would look down on yet another purchase. It’s possible, however, that that the deal has been resurrected.

Here’s why LinkedIn may be considered valuable to a suitor. Its user base doubled last year to more than 20 million active users worldwide, and it claims that 1.3 million new members are joining p

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Comments (8)

Nishith,

May 05, 2008

I always wonder.. how do bloggers find out about such rumors?

Nishith,

May 05, 2008

Are these things always deliberately leaked into the media?

Lucaswyrsch,

May 05, 2008

What about Microsoft? Yahoo shares tumble after Microsoft abandons bid and if Microsoft abandoned its bid, could it be to buy LinkedIn instead?

Lucaswyrsch,

May 05, 2008

And I'm not the only guy asking this question: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/archives/138115.asp?from=blog_last3

Gabhijit,

May 05, 2008

Infact Yahoo! should buy linked in if they are 'sensible' types, but I doubt.. :-)

Thomaspower,

May 05, 2008

Good news for business social networks.

Sourcerkelly,

May 06, 2008

Thanks to Maren!

Davidnordell,

May 07, 2008

All the rumours and hype about LinkedIn's possible acquisition are ver interesting, but mainly serve the interests of the founders and VCs who are able to exploit them to create a quiet bidding war. However, as someone who has used LinkedIn very actively since it was in beta, I should also say that the company's quality of service, and in particular its respect for its heavy users, have not increased either in proportion to the number of users or to the number of competing social/business networks, most of which are in my humble opinion me-too services that don't deserve much attention. The truth is that Facebook has developed from a purely social network for college kids into a very good mixed social-business service that, at least for my purposes, provides about 30% of LinkedIn's added value, but with many functions and applications that LinkedIn just doesn't provide. LinkedIn's big mistake is in trying to control the platform to closely; but the power users such as myself are just rebelling. A service that doesn't respect its users doesn't deserve to survive, and unfortunately LinkedIn is sailing pretty close to the wind. I'm not going to jump ship, to continue the nautical metaphor, because it is definitely useful to me, but if LinkedIn doesn't allow users to build new content and applications on top of the generic platform, it will haemorrhage users to Facebook and other services that have a strategy based on greater flexibility and responsiveness. The premium services and advertising are not doub bringing in some revenue; but if LinkedIn is bought out by some mega-corporation tomorrow, the buyers are likely, given the overall quality of the service, to find themselves facing the same problem as eBay after purchasing Skype -- writing off a big chunk of money.