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LinkedIn to Gates

Bill Gates is on LinkedIn…are you?  I’m behind the curve on the social networking side, but I do find LinkedIn to be a fascinating tool.  We are just starting to expand our sourcing activities into the LinkedIn space and it is already paying dividends.

We are starting to receive 2nd and 3rd degree of separation contacts from job seekers, business owners and old classmates.  It it almost like drawing a “Chance” card in monopoly – you’re not quite sure who is contacting you, but it always draws your attention.

LinkedIn To BusinessWeek

I’m still a LinkedIn neophyte, but I like the development they are pursuing.  From Online Media Daily comes this story – LinkedIn Opens ‘Back End’ To BusinessWeek, Other Web Publishers:

LINKEDIN, A SOCIAL NETWORK TARGETING business professionals, is living up to its name. It’s opening its “back end” to Web publishers that want to bring the network’s functions to their sites. The first publisher to get the LinkedIn invitation, BusinessWeek, wants to use its networking function to make BW’s Web site a place where business types can connect and maybe even make deals–in other words, a place to do business, rather than just read about it.

In one feature, LinkedIn will create links in the text of BusinessWeek editorial content for the proper names of businesses and people. By mousing over the links, the reader can determine how they are connected to the individual or entity in question, including how many of their own contacts are connected.

I often tell candidates that I can’t imagine being in sales and not using LinkedIn.

MySpace LinkedIn

Well here is an interesting rumor from TechCrunch:

An unconfirmed rumour has reached me via a reliable source that LinkedIn is in talks with media giant News Corporation over a possible buyout in January 2008. The reason I am running with this, is that the source is very well-placed. Furthermore, the rumour has the fundamental ring of truth about it.

We’ll have to keep an eye on this interesting development.

LinkedIn On Top…For Now

Online Media Daily has a news brief regarding the fastest growing social networking sites. 

AMONG TOP SOCIAL NETWORKS, LINKED-IN was the fastest-growing over the last year, according to October ratings released Wednesday by Nielsen Online.

The site geared toward professional users drew 4.9 million visitors last month, up from 1.7 million a year ago.

Other fast-growing social networks included kiddie site Club Penguin, up 157% to 3.8 million users, and Facebook, more than doubling its audience to 19.5 million in the last year. MySpace remained the top social network with 58.8 million users, up 19% from 2006.

LinkedIn was the fastest growing, but it seems like Facebook is the site to watch.  Whichever way it plays out, I would recommend putting your information on both sites.

Facebook, Microsoft And Banner Ads

From Inc.com regarding Microsoft’s staggering investment in Facebook (emphasis mine):

The software megalith paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent equity stake in the fast growing social network. That’s a lot of money, but the real reason for the Facebook brouhaha is the valuation: $15 billion dollars for a company that has revenues estimated at $150 million, profits of approximately $30 million, a flip-flop wearing 23 year old of a CEO. The idea that Facebook might be worth $1 billion let alone $15 billion seemed like near insanity only a year ago, which makes Microsoft’s investment a huge coup for Mark Zuckerberg.

But look beyond the numbers, and you’ll see that this deal has very little to do with valuation. It’s about advertising. Buried underneath the headlines about Zuckerberg becoming really rich, is the fact that Microsoft became Facebook’s exclusive advertising partner as part of the deal and will now be responsible for all of Facebook’s third party ads. This expands upon an earlier agreement, signed in 2006, that made Microsoft the U.S. provider of banner ads.

I’m not sure how much the right to serve third party banner ads is worth, but it’s definitely substantial.

I guess it is substantial. So much for making banner ads look cheap.

MS Facebook

From the rumor mill:

Setting the stage for a possible bidding battle, Microsoft Corp. is mulling an investment in Facebook Inc. that would value the rapidly growing online hangout at $10 billion or more, according to a report published Monday.

Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal said Microsoft is holding preliminary discussions that could culminate in a $300 million to $500 million in Facebook, a Palo Alto social-networking site founded just 3 1/2 years ago.

Interesting, but here is the information that caught my attention:

An outright sale of Facebook is considered unlikely. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s 23-year-old co-founder and chief executive, has repeatedly expressed his desire to remain independent. He rejected a $1 billion acquisition offer from Yahoo Inc. last year.

23-year-old CEO is remarkable.

Losing Your Job Via MySpace

There is a fine line that has yet to be determined when it comes to blogs, social networking and other web 2.0 tools.  Case in point, this post from Podcasting News:

Last year, she was dismissed from the student teaching program at a nearby high school and denied her teaching credential after the school staff came across her photograph on her MySpace profile. She filed a lawsuit in April this year in federal court in Philadelphia contending that her rights to free expression under the First Amendment had been violated. No trial date has been set.

Her photo, preserved at the “Wired Campus” blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education, turns out to be surprisingly innocuous. In a head shot snapped at a costume party, Ms. Snyder, with a pirate’s hat perched atop her head, sips from a large plastic cup whose contents cannot be seen. When posting the photo, she fatefully captioned her self-portrait “drunken pirate,” though whether she was serious can’t be determined by looking at the photo.

If you follow the link you can see the picture which is best described as innocuous.  It is hard to imagine she lost her job over this photo, but she was a teacher which adds a twist.  I’m still undecided on which way to view the use of social networking sites in background verifications.

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