LinkedIn Reaches 6 Million...let's look at the numbers.

Ok, maybe I'm being a bit of a geek here...

Back in March I posted about an interview by Konstantin Guericke where he said that LinkedIn "are adding one million new members every three months"

Back then they had 5.5 Million users, now yesterday, Konstantin announces their 6 millionth member. So, between 29th March and 30th May (2 months) they've added 500,000?

I suspect that they only update the official tally in half-million chunks - oooooh, how Ecademy would love to do that ;-)

Back in July 2005, Konstantin was commenting on this post (OpenBC bigger than LinkedIn?) that they "add 500k new users every two months" and, at that time, in this interview we have the number of members listed at 3.2 million.

In this post in Jan 2006, we have a figure of around 4 million, which was taken off the LinkedIn front page.

So, from July 2005 to Jan 2006 LinkedIn went from around 3 million to 4 million in 6 months. Then, from Jan 2006 to June 2006 (the next 6 months) it has added another 2 million, which is pretty much in line with Konstantin's comment "one million new members every three months".

As you can see, it's certainly accelerating and I think they've hit a tipping point.

I've heard that LinkedIn expect 10 million by the end of the year. They'll have to double their current rate of growth to do that...but, hey, look at MySpace.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

Related Searches On LinkedIn

For a few days now LinkedIn have been testing a new "analytical prototype engine" for searches. It comes and goes as they fine tune it but basically, if you search for "HR Director" you will be prompted to click on related searches such as hr, hr manager, "hr director", human resources, etc.

Here's a screen shot of what it looks like:


I suspect that this will lead to a certain amount of "keyword optimising" for profiles. As this is still being fine-tuned, I think it's best to wait a little until it beds in before making any radical changes to your profile.

It's interesting to note that (at the moment) the default setting for the standard search box is to sort results by "keyword relevance", whereas when you click on one of the new recommended searches it's by "degrees away from you".

A very nice feature. In my view, searching is still where LinkedIn is the clear leader.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

LinkedIn Deja Vu?

I picked this up today from a recent Yahoo!Group Post...a real Deja Vu moment.

A company called Fast Pitch! has launched a new platform that seems to be a profile based service, in a similar vein to Ziggs, in that it offers a searchable profile that is indexed by Google (you can get this anyway from the main business networking sites, such as LinkedIn and Ecademy - see Web Profiles On Google)

Anyway, what's aroused interest is that the site has a very similar look and feel to LinkedIn (tabs, buttons, icons, etc).

Is this just a copycat or is LinkedIn providing a white-label platform in a similar move to openBC? (see academici)

What I found amusing was that their "fast pitch" on the site was "For as little as $4.95 per month, Fast Pitch! guarantees your Profile will receive top placement within the world's largest search engine."

They invite you to test it out by typing "Jon Witte" into a google search box

"As you can see" they tell you "Jon's Fast Pitch! Profile is the most visible search result returned and it is the only result that actually reflects Jon."

Err..sorry, when I did it "Jon Witte" didn't even appear on the first page.


Perhaps he's stopped paying his $4.95 ;-)

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn, Fast Pitch

Joined the New Forbes Groups yet?

If you, like me, only signed up for the one Forbes group...and then wondered how you could sign up for more: here's the link:

http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=promo_forbes

Thanks to Chris's post on The Social Network Portal for the link.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn, Forbes

LinkedIn Co-Brands With Forbes

When I booted up LinkedIn this morning I found an invite in my InBox to join a new Forbes group.

Hmmm...always interested in new ways to expand my access to contacts so, what the hey, I signed up.

Later, I discover from a Yahoo! Group post by Konstantin that LinkedIn has entered into a partnership with Forbes and that, by joining the group, my "LinkedIn home page will be co-branded by Forbes" and "will have a Forbes RSS feed on [my] home page".

So far, no co-branding...but I'm sure it's coming. Slightly worrying is the comment that "I'm not sure you can get rid off these things later" ????

Oh well, I'm sure LinkedIn's good taste won't let it become like MySpace.com. Last time I logged on the whole homepage was branded X-Men.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn, Forbes

The Powers' New Book: A Friend In Every City

Ok, so I'm a sucker for buying books...

Anyway, The Powers' (that's Thomas and Penny not Austin & Nigel) are launching their new book this week "A Friend In Every City".

If you're a PowerNetworker or BlackStar you can download a chapter to read, which I did.

I looks like an interesting read; I enjoyed the e-Book "Networking for Life" that you get when you become a PowerNetworker, even if it was a little self-promotional.

A couple of interesting quotes from the chapter I downloaded...

"Blogging is live history. Google remembers you forever."

And (good tip here) - "the first paragraph [of your profile] is used by Google as explanatory text". (see my previous post - Web Profiles On Google)

Staying on the subject of profiles...the book says that Thomas "thinks your profile should be immortal. His profile has been written as if he is dead which spooks some people."

I'll say...having looked at Thomas' profile the first line says "Call me at anytime..." No wonder people are spooked...Thomas wants them to contact him beyond the grave ;-)

Looking forward to the full book.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Ecademy, Thomas Power

Anonymous LinkedIn Invitations

This has only happened a couple of times, and the most recent was the other day.

Someone sends me an invitiation to connect with the name "Headhunters Network". There's a string of positions this person (male or female) has apparantly been in, and they're all obviously false (always starting and ending in January, wow, (s)he's nothing by predictable) ;-)

These positions are probably just created to capture "former colleagues" who may use LinkedIn's re-connect tool.

Anyway, when they sent me their invite 3 days ago I noticed that they had 60 or so connections. Now they're up to 234. Taking a look at their contacts (which are all 2nd degree to me) I can see that they're just anyone who has posted their email address.

The invitation sent was the standard "Since you're a person I trust...", of course, they trust me so much they're not prepared to disclose their name.

So, I sent them a reply and said, "who are you", a reasonable request I think. Surprise, surprise, there's no response to date...

I can't understand why anyone would want to connect to someone like this. What would you get in return? Where's the value? Does anyone really think this person is adding their own contacts into their network...yeah, right. They can't even be bothered to explain why they've taken this apporach.

Suffice to say, I decided to decline. I may be promiscuous when it comes to connecting, but even I have some standards.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

Stop it, Eric...my head hurts ;-)

I've been following Eric Mariacher's posts recently as he's been attempting to understand users and connections on LinkedIn to come to a conclusion on how many connections is worth having.

His latest post MARIACHER’S NETWORKING LAW ;-) –OR- WHY DO MY FINDINGS DO NOT CONTRADICT REED'S AND METCALFE'S LAWS just makes my head hurt ;-). But it's well worth a read if you're a bit of a geek and into such things (which I am)

Eric follows on from his previous post, where he asks the question: Is it worth having 7000 or 100 LinkedIn connections?

His conclusion is that, as around 43% of LinkedIn users are passive (meaning only having 1 connection) then a user with 100 1st level connections has "access roughly to the same number of active LinkedIn users as [ a user] who has 7000 1st level connections".

Now, here's the rub. Eric's conclusion is based on his opinion that passive users are not of the same value as active users. Of course, in "networking" terms that is probably true. But that isn't the reason many people use LinkedIn.

What if you're a researcher, headhunter, sales person? Finding a named passive contact sitting there with just one contact can be extremely valuable.

By Eric's figures, someone with 7000+ connections (which must be Eric, he's ranked #27 on TopLinked) has access to 2.6 million 3rd degree connections (mainly passive users), whereas someone with 100 has access to 1.3 million users (this is of course not entirely accurate, I have around 1000 1st degree connections less than Eric and the same number of 3rd degree connections)

However, could that extra 1.3 million 3rd connections be worth the effort? For some people...yes it could.

Or should I say yes it was as 3000 is the theoretical ceiling for invites on LinkedIn now, so unless you're there now...forget it baby ;-)

Anyway, thanks for the analysis, Eric. Very enjoyable.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

The joys of Web 2.0 - Ecademy on Wikipedia

There seems to be a little debate bubbling under on Wikipedia about Ecademy. I noticed a post on Ecademy today referring to their entry on Wikipedia.

Being the nosey type, had a little trawl through the talk page and it appears that much of the controversy comes from some ex- (or is that banned) members taking exception to some of the history.

Ah...the joys of Web 2.0 ;-)

One thing I found quite interesting was that Ecademy originally started as an "Education Portal for Electronic Commerce".


Now it all makes sense...when I've met many Ecademy members who'd been on the site from the early days, they were very much the internet-entrepreneur or techie-geek type. They were usually lamenting that it was getting full of life coaches and that the management was stopping them from putting cartoons and pictures of funny animals on their profiles instead of their "real" photos (if you miss the old pics...nip over to Last Thursday)

But, as Wikipedia demonstrates, whilst you can control how people use your site, it's a little harder to control what they say about your site.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Ecademy, Wikipedia, Web 2.0

Quick...I'm back up to #37 [don't blink]

For anyone who's bothered... I took another look on TopLinked.com and I've moved back up to #37 (the whole sad background to this is here, it's why I named my blog Linked 'n' 37).

Anyway...thought I'd take a screen shot for prosperity:


This list is from March, and the guy at #35 is shown with 5,820 contacts. He now has "6200+" on his profile, which just goes to show how fast LinkedIn is growing.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn

At last...hot links on your LinkedIn profile

I just noticed that LinkedIn now allows you to put links to websites on your profile. In typical LinkedIn understated fashion there's no big announcement, it's just there!

Link categories include "My Company, "My Blog" and "My Website". So, the format is controlled so everyone's profile will look the same (no wild HTML code here), but a major upgrade none-the-less.

Well done LinkedIn...this is what we've all been waiting for.

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, LinkedIn