back to article LinkedIn proves not all social IPOs were bubbly

While IPO investors in Facebook, Groupon, and Zynga are still losing money on their investments, shares in LinkedIn rose nearly 20 per cent in trading after the company released good fourth quarter and year-end results. On Thursday, LinkedIn reported that revenues were up 81 per cent to $303.6m for the last quarter, and up 86 …

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  1. John Hawkins
    Meh

    Losing it...

    But now they're losing it - endorsements, spam and other BS are turning me off LinkedIn. I've just removed all of my listed skills and pared my profile down to a bare minimum to limit the noise generated by it.

    The original concept of a contact database still works - much better the the pile of business cards I used to have - but I can do without the creeping Facebook-envy that LinkedIn seems to have contracted.

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Losing it...

      They are losing you (same as me). They are gaining paying "customers" and food for them.

      Like it or not Linkedin is the headhunter social network. Its only goal is to spread you into a nice thin easy to inspect and nitpick layer in front of headhunting lowlife. That is who is really footing the bills there.

      Unfortunately there is a significant fraction of us at any given time who are looking for a job. So LinkedIn will always have "food" to pre-digest and offer its "customers" for consumption.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Losing it...

      to limit the noise generated by it.

      Ain't that the truth. During privacy investigations I turned off all the filters once, and the amount of data that you get fed about the tiniest twitch of everyone is worrying, mainly you do not control what LinkedIn sends to everyone about you, you only control what you receive of others.

      We avoid it where possible, and where used we feed it the bare minimum of data (partly because the whole "right to be forgotten" isn't exactly part of their DNA either).

  2. Blake St. Claire

    All I can say is: Don't be Facebook

    > new services have been rolled out slowly to avoid antagonizing the user base.

    For a while they seemed to be trying hard to be Facebook and that was beyond annoying.

  3. AndrueC Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    I gave up on LinkedIn over a year ago. I got fed up with them spamming me with 'news' despite my every attempt to tell them I didn't want it. That and people I barely knew wanting to link with me. I would now be very wary about anyone's LinkedIn recommendations.

    1. Seanie Ryan
      Pirate

      missed an opportunity?

      maybe the people who wanted to link to you wanted to make contact to possibly do business?

      kinda like not answering the phone if its not an existing contact. They might be asking about new business.

      1. Blake St. Claire
        Boffin

        Re: missed an opportunity?

        > maybe the people who wanted to link to you wanted to make contact to possibly do business?

        Well, yes. In my case it's recruiters who want to link to me to tell me about a job they're trying to fill.

        Maybe I don't get it, but I have this notion that I link to people I actually know and have actually worked with; I'm not going to link to a stranger. No doubt I could remove the link later––

        Maybe they could tell me a teeny bit about the job first? Or I might bite if I was actually looking for a job, but I have a job, so if they want me to bite, they need to up the ante.

      2. John Tserkezis

        Re: missed an opportunity?

        maybe the people who wanted to link to you wanted to make contact to possibly do business?

        Most of the suggested contacts in the first few days were people I already knew, so kinda defeats the purpose there.

        But after that, it seemed like *everyone* wanted to be my friend - even though at that stage I had a very minimalist profile set up.

        I have a carefully set up filter that prunes out most of the crap that comes from LinkedIn, and boy, there's a lot of crap that comes in.

        Sorta makes me wonder why I bothered to join (the second time around) when my experience was the same as the first. I was told it was good for "work", I'm just not seeing it.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: missed an opportunity?

          Sorta makes me wonder why I bothered to join (the second time around) when my experience was the same as the first. I was told it was good for "work", I'm just not seeing it.

          I suspect it all boils down to what you want to get out of it.

          In the last four years, LinkedIn has directly lead to me getting 36 months worth of contract work on very good daily rates. In that measurement it significantly outperforms any of the job sites and is certainly worth the bit of effort it takes to manage.

          Setting up your profile properly is a good first start. I get almost no spam from LinkedIn and it is possible to change it to auto-deny things like job offers if you dont want them.

          As to linking with strangers - I think that is actually essential. LinkedIn is a networking tool and only works if you are able to grow your network. If your network only consists of people you already interact with, it is kind of pointless and there are much better things to spend your time on. As I see it, if you went to a networking event but only talked to people you already knew, you would be wasting most of your time there.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In a purely face to face context...

    I mean YES, things like Linked In, can be useful when searching in the broader context for service providers, as compared to using a phone book (???), but I think "How many people do I really NEED to know, and NEED to be dealing with in order to successfully run my life and business?"

    I an I may assume, many other people are developing this aversion to "Facebook Fuck-ism" - with the 10 million and one "online friends / contacts" all busily trying to win the "popularity / upvote" contests - the "Like Us" click on linking.

    Then you get all the other shit like web tracking etc..

    Then when one whittles away all the crap into 2 data sets, "What do I NEED?" and "What MAY be useful?" - the people at Linked In, have seriously overstepped the mark, in terms of client servicing.

    Like that Fuck Hole of a corporation called Facebook - getting one email a day, every day, for the last 4 or 5 months, telling me "You have more friends on Facebook than you think." (log in and go searching for them).

    That is the sort of "Corporate Moron" bullshit that is a gross display of irritating stupidity and it incites me to mark all email from them as spam - as Facebook is only good for searching for information, perhaps a long lost friend from many years ago - nothing much else.

    The idiots at Linked In, are all getting hard on's over anything going on at Facebook - so they decide on the "Me Too" methods to piss people off - "Oh Oh Facebook are doing this, that and the other - how about we do it too! Hey great idea guys!"

    And so the people running a business, keep on running it, and the idiots piss away their time on the lick and stick friends web sites...

    Good Bye Linked In.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: In a purely face to face context...

      the "Like Us" click on linking

      It's worse than that. Somewhere there appears to be a feature now which blocks people's access to a page unless they have "liked" it first. For me, that was probably the most aggressive "do not like - EVER" thing someone can do with marketing..

  5. Bob Vistakin
    Go

    Ditching the Twitter integration was a smart move

    It's great they did this, but not so great it wasn't actually their choice. Who really needs to know what I think of the pop factor contestants in order to do business with me? Anyway, I reckon Linked In is the closest thing we'll get to a usable global people directory - ultimately the business "phone book" for the world. Obviously there only needs to be one, so it's no wonder it's doing so well and management want to tread carefully before ruining things the way Facebook did.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "LinkedIn's success can be attributed to a number of factors. The company pitched a low initial valuation at IPO and has retained a tight grip on business fundamentals. There have been no massive purchases, new services have been rolled out slowly to avoid antagonizing the user base, and the site offers clear value for its members.

    It's a lesson others in the social-networking field could learn from. "

    The real lesson is that LinkedIn actually offers something compared to say Facebook. Facebook is more of a fad all while not actually providing anything.

  7. Eddy Ito

    Simple reason

    LinkedIn is more business and the others, FB et al, are mostly fun and games. While many folks would like to see a potential monetary return for playing games and wasting time with "friends" it's a difficult thing to actually pull off. In short, the users see LinkedIn as a source and FB as a drain.

  8. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Meh

    In two minds ...

    LinkedIn was nice - I've got a nice profile, and some great recommendations. However I've only connected with colleagues (old and present) and people I studied with, in the same industry. And I can't say I've ever benefited from being on there.

    Now, of late, I've started getting loads of invites from "industry experts" which turn out to be recruitment consultants with 1,000s of contacts. Which I'm not interested in. Which means I haven't actually logged in this year.

    Go figure.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: In two minds ...

      LinkedIn was nice - I've got a nice profile, and some great recommendations. However I've only connected with colleagues (old and present) and people I studied with, in the same industry. And I can't say I've ever benefited from being on there.

      I suspect the reason you havent benefited from LinkedIn is contained in the previous sentence there.

      For you, there is no value in LinkedIn - it connects you to people you are already connected to and already able to interact with.

      If you can be bothered to make an effort with linkedin, join groups, talk to strangers etc., then there is some value (lots of well paid contract work for me) but it really isnt for everyone.

      If you dont want to get involved (I dont have a facebook account and never used myspace), then dont. It isnt for everyone.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    The number you are trying to reach...

    LinkedIn is more of an unemployment directory, than anything else. The problem with that is, you are now consorting with other unemployed people on a massive scale. It's sort of like WAN networking, but with only dead connections. Or to give it some due, putting your name on the unemployment directory at an unemployment office. You could that, but then you are expecting people to come to you, and that says much about your motivation.

    1. IronSteve

      Re: The number you are trying to reach...

      You don't have to be unemployed to be looking for a new job.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The number you are trying to reach...

      LinkedIn is more of an unemployment directory, than anything else.

      Far from it.

      I know graphic designers who find clients on it, I have had lots of good IT Contract work from it, events are publicised on it etc. Not many of the people I see there are unemployed and looking for new jobs. (Most job seekers are looking while still employed in my experience).

  10. theopriestley

    Actually this was a stroke of genius, if you read the full details Weiner is taking LinkedIn into full on content marketing.

    http://successfulworkplace.com/2013/02/08/jeff-weiner-wants-linkedin-to-be-the-king-of-content-marketing/

    Very clever move.

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  12. Frumious Bandersnatch
    Headmaster

    fraction schmaction

    Wall Street responded by pushing the social networking firms shares to $150, significantly up from their IPO price of $45. By contrast, Facebook's shares still languish at around two-thirds of their IPO price, and those (un)lucky enough to buy into Groupon and Zynga have seen their holdings reduced to a fraction of their initial value.

    I'll have you know that 2/3rds is also a fraction! Then again, so is 150/45, but I don't want to be too pedantic...

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: fraction schmaction

      Yes, along with the vile abuse perpetrated on poor "exponential", this misuse of "fraction" is one of the most annoying of popular verbal ticks. (I'd also include idiotic metaphorical use of "energy", "powered by", or "DNA".)

      I suppose we're just lucky that Thompson didn't write "seen their holdings exponentially reduced to a fraction...".

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