I have stayed away from writing about acquisitions that LinkedIn does because of a few reasons. Either they didn’t make too much sense, or because the acquisition didn’t seem to add much/any value to the average user, or because I wanted to focus mostly on using LinkedIn, not so much what’s happening with the company.

Speaking of happening with the company, tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, aka, LinkedIn’s birthday!

Back to acquisitions.

LinkedIn acquired Slideshare for $119M, apparently (details here).  I find this really interesting.

I think Slideshare was doing fine on their own.  And they are the #1 application I say everyone should have on their Profile.  Two great companies, offering awesomeness to customers.

I don’t understand WHY LinkedIn would make this acquisition.  I put on my MBA/strategy hat today to try and figure it out, and the only thing I could come up with was this: LinkedIn wanted to ensure that they had complete control over this technology and offering, and didn’t want to worry about Slideshare’s potential strategic changes, or, in case they weren’t healthy, Slideshare going away.

Honestly, I don’t know.

Nonetheless, it’s not my place to speculate. I think these are two great organizations, and acquiring Slideshare only means that it should continue to be an integral part of LinkedIn.

What does this mean to you, the user?  Not much, but I stand by what I’ve always said: YOU NEED TO DO A SLIDESHARE PRESENTATION ON YOUR PROFILE.

Check mine out here (I’ve had my slideshare presentation towards the top of my Profile for over a year:

I was at the library yesterday with some time to spare and was flipping through the Forbes magazine and saw that Reid Hoffman was worth about 2.1B. (right now on Forbes it says 1.8B… Give or take a few hundred million, I guess)

That is over two thousand million dollars.

That’s amazing.

He’s 44 years old. Let’s say he lives to be 100. He could spend 35 million a year and still have money left over (assuming he isn’t investing it… otherwise he could spend a lot more and not even touch his principle).

I know people have a problem with rich people, but I applaud him for making a fortune.

The internet is abuzz with the news that LinkedIn now has more than 150 million people signed up on their site.  Congrats, LinkedIn – that is cool!  Here’s their unique visitors from Compete (a third party – who knows how accurate this is):

What does it mean that they are getting 2 signups per second, have 150 million signups, but only get about 25M unique visitors in a month?  You tell me.

Also, did you know LinkedIn has been acquiring companies?  Here are two I found interesting:

Announced this week: Rapportive, which I heard about from a friend in NYC a few weeks ago.  Very cool application that makes your inbox a lot smarter (and tied to social tools). More info here.

Announced in October (anyone hear of this?): Connectedhq.com.  Dubbed “contact management without the work.” More here.

Finally, all the big social news this week has been about Pinterest…. one day, all three News spots at the top of LinkedIn’s page were about Pinterest, how it was changing the face of web design, how it is the FASTEST growing website in history, etc.  Cool stuff.

Spend 15 minutes and read this 3-page article about Reid Hoffman.  It’s the best read that I’ve seen on the founder of LinkedIn, his history, etc.

If you are interested in the WHY of LinkedIn, you need to learn about the man who was behind it.

A King of Connections is Tech’s Go-To Guy (New York Times)

Seems like a logical progression on the path they’ve been on for the last year+.

What do you think about it?

Reference Link: LinkedIn Launches Company Status Updates [How to Get Started]

Many say they are

Check out this question on LinkedIn Answers: Has anyone else noticed that endorser names on LinkedIn recommendations have disappeared?

This could have been about a dozen different features that have disappeared.

I wonder where LinkedIn is headed – if they keep taking away functionality from free users they will either drive their users to other networks (Facebook and Google+), or they will increase their upgrades and make more money.

Perhaps they’ll accomplish both: make more money from people who use the tool while getting rid of (dare I say?) freeloaders who just use the resources.

It’s an interesting crossroads to be at…!

I saw an interesting title on my LinkedIn Group and clicked over to learn more.   Check out this biting title:

LinkedIn Pulled A Facebook And Messed With Your Info — Here’s How To Fix It

Wow. That is a strong accusation. Facebook has become notorious for screwing (there’s not really a nice way to say what FB does, with regard to our privacy!) users by making all kinds of weird changes to privacy.

So what did they do?  Read the article to see how to OPT OUT… here’s what it is in a nutshell:

LinkedIn has volunteered your name and photograph to be used for advertising if it feels like it wants to use them.

I hadn’t heard of this before, so I followed the simple steps to opt out and found that yes, I indeed am in their list of people who can be used for LinkedIn’s advertising. In a nutshell, you opt out by going into the Settings page, then in this order:

I haven’t seen or heard this anywhere else… maybe all the hype over Google+ is keeping the LinkedIn bloggers busy?

LinkedIn filed to become a public company (IPO -> initial public offering), which means they had to document a lot of stuff they haven’t had to as a private company.

It’s kind of a bare-all document.

You can read the entire thing here, at the SEC website.

You can read some thoughts here, at the Business Insider website (much smaller, just highlights).

Interesting, eh? I’m reading this with different perspectives: one who writes about LinkedIn, and one who owns a business and wants to know what big, funded, successful companies do and think. It’s really cool to see all this stuff (although I’m sure they wish they could keep it under wraps forever :p).

LinkedIn finally announced they have 100 million people who have signed up for their service.

These are not 100M users… but people who have opened an account (less the duplicates, of course).

Congrats to LinkedIn – that is a great milestone!

(check out the cool image at the bottom of this post that shows some neat stats…. two that jumped out at me are (a) less than 45% of signups are in the US, and (b) there are over 20M groups!)

On a LinkedIn Group I saw a message that indicated LinkedIn is reducing free account services (AGAIN)… this time it’s a really big reduction.

I just tested and there is no change for me, but maybe it just isn’t rolled out in my account yet.  I honestly hope this is just a rumor, though.

Here’s what I know:

If you are NOT a first degree contact with someone and you want to communicate with them with a message, you have to upgrade (it says: “Send an InMail”… which sends you to a page to upgrade).

I’ve always been able to join a Group that that person is in, and the “send Inmail” link changes to “Send a message,” with no upgrade prompt.  This has been a great way to communicate with someone quite fast, without upgrade, and without a limit on how many times I can send a message like this (in other words, you only get X inMails a month, or at a time).

If the rumors are true, LinkedIn is changing it so that it will still say “send an inMail.”  Apparently, based on what the person reporting it wrote, you can still send them a message, but you have to go the “long way” to do it… you’d have to go to the Group, find the person, and then click the link to message them from there. That might take me a few minutes to do, which is a pain.

I’m not sure if this is really the direction LinkedIn is headed.  They’ve reduced the free features a number of times over the last while… I’m guessing they’ve done it as they’ve prepared for their IPO (“hey, look at us, we have a lot of people upgrading!”).  I hope it stops, though… if they keep reducing the free features they’ll really prompt people to look at an alternative.  Even an 800 pound guerrilla can’t keep pushing and pushing (and disrespecting) and expect to get away with it.

I’ve heard a lot of backlash about this type of behaviour over the years… on that one Discussion talking about this the comments include:

Yep… it’s like what IT people said Microsoft called their bugs… “features.”

This is a SHAMEFUL statement… it’s a shame that users are saying this disrespectful move is TYPICAL. If I owned or worked at LinkedIn this would be a stinging statement (I can’t defend it!)

I really can’t say more than that… :s

Like I said, I hope the rumors are UNTRUE!