LinkedIn Hires New Managers, Gears up for IPO
|
Written By Drupad Sil | June 27, 2007 | Share This
|
|
Business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn is preparing for its IPO by reloading some key management positions, Reuters reports.
On Tuesday, it announced the hiring of three new executives, including ex-Tivo and AskJeeves CFO Steve Sordello. Expected to join Sordello is Yahoo Inc. advertising executive Patrick Crane, who will lead the company’s first general marketing campaign. The duo will work with recent hire Anil Khatri, a former vice president of engineering at Yahoo. LinkedIn is hoping that the new leadership can lead the charge against increasingly stiff competition, most notably from Facebook.com.
California-based LinkedIn was founded in 2003, but only began turning a profit in April 2006. Designed as a site where corporate professionals can maintain a list of business contacts, it has experienced rapid growth of late, with membership doubling to about 12 million in the last nine months. Indeed, LinkedIn Chief Executive Dan Nye is projecting revenues around the $100 million mark for 2008. The site makes money from a premium subscription service, transaction fees from recruiters, and online advertisements, but distinguishes itself from other online networking sites with its all-business attitude in functionality. While MySpace and Facebook are social networking tools, LinkedIn users are expected to accomplish tasks and move on. Unfortunately, this hasn’t stopped Facebook from taking a significant bite out of LinkedIn’s audience.
Despite LinkedIn’s focus on the business world, Facebook has been steadily attracting more users from the corporate world. While Nye differentiates the two by claiming Facebook’s appeal is social, not professional, there are plans for a LinkedIn application to be released on Facebook. It would appear that such a precise distinction doesn’t make a difference for most users, however. Eric Savitz over at Tech Trader Daily notes:
“I’m registered with LinkedIn, and I can appreciate how some people find it useful. But I would note here that there is an interesting thing happening among the Silicon Valley elite, which LinkedIn ought to be worrying about: venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, PR people, reporters, bloggers and the rest of the digerati are moving onto Facebook in what seems like a giant hurry.”
We’ll have to wait and see if the new LinkedIn team can make up ground on Facebook. If they can’t close the gap, an IPO may be out of the question.
Topics: ECommerce, Social Media |