WebProNews

Tag: LinkedIn

  • Berlin-based EarlyBird Raises $100 Million

    Berlin-based EarlyBird Raises $100 Million

    Berlin investment firm EarlyBird recently raised $100 million in its fourth round. EarlyBird was founded in 1997, and has since invested in more than 70 companies, and is presently focusing on European startups, especially those in Germany. Incidentally, LinkedIn co-founder Konstantin Geurike is also an EarlyBird partner.

    Geurike, who is German, though educated at Stanford and based in Palo Alto, sees a talent pool in Europe that is a bit scarce in Silicon Valley. He told VentureBeat, “I think given the amount of money available, the shortage in Silicon Valley is in technical talent. I have no doubt that some European startups with strong talent and the right startup know-how will be able to out-execute Silicon Valley companies.”

    Geurike adds that he plans to focus on helping EarlyBird-funded startups expand to the U.S. market – “My goal is to help portfolio companies to become a success on a global scale – I will probably end up working most closely with one or two founders who decide their best opportunities for global impact come from leading their business from Silicon Valley, while keeping most of the staff in Germany, where it is easier to attract and retain technical talent.” When comparing the European startup climate to that of the U.S., Geurike states, “European founders tend to think more about revenue early on. That can be an asset, but also somewhat limiting. However, given the greater impact you can have these days with modest or no funding, I think European entrepreneurs can break free of these constraints, and smart money will find them.”

    In related news, LinkedIn doubled its revenue in 2011 with $522 million, though likewise became less profitable – This is due to the company nearly tripling its costs in regards to sales and marketing. The social network hired 531 sales and marketing people in 2011, a roughly 270% increase. Though, the expansion effort is working – the platform presently has about 161 million users.

  • LinkedIn Launches an App For Windows Phone

    LinkedIn, the effective social network for professional networking has officially launched a version of its mobile app for Windows Phone. The app provides much of the same functionality that the Android and iPhone apps provide, allowing users to access their stream, find and connect with other professionals, search for jobs, and read industry news. The app can be downloaded for free in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

    As you can see in the picture above, the new Windows Phone app does not share the navigation scheme or look of either its iPhone or Android siblings. Instead, LinkedIn opted to use the Metro-style look of a Windows Phone app. Users will navigate through the app using large blue tiles and buttons.

    Tomer Cohen, a mobile product manager at LinkedIn, announced the app launch over at the LinkedIn blog:

    We’ve been working hard to make this new LinkedIn app best-in-class in the Windows Phone marketplace. We took advantage of the unique and beautiful Windows Phone metro style design while ensuring users would have easy and quick access to all the relevant professional information they’ve come to rely on from LinkedIn. You’ll find that in some cases (hint: companies and jobs), the Windows Phone app offers even more functionality than its iOS and Android siblings.

    LinkedIn has been focusing on mobile quite a bit lately. It was less than a month ago that their well-received iPad app was launched. The social network’s mobile views have been skyrocketing over the past year, and it even open-sourced its navigation code for its iPhone app. The LinkedIn Windows Phone app looks to be another big, yet graceful step in the company’s quest to make its service as mobile-friendly as possible.

  • LinkedIn Interested in Buying Monster

    LinkedIn Interested in Buying Monster

    Reuters is reporting that “people familiar with the matter” have told them LinkedIn, the popular social network devoted to professional networking, may be interested in purchasing Monster Worldwide, the company that owns the job search websites monster.com and hotjobs.com.

    In early March, Monster revealed that it would be retaining Stone Key Partners and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to review its financial situation. This “review of strategic alternatives” included the possibility of selling Monster Worldwide. Silver Lake Partners, a private technology investment company, was also named as a party interested in the possible sale.

    From the Reuters report:

    The company, which has roughly $950 million market capitalization, plans to send out financial information to the interested parties by the end of next week, they said.

    Representatives for Monster and LinkedIn declined to comment. Silver Lake, Stone Key Partners and Bank of America had no immediate comment.

    So, an anonymous source and no comment from the companies. Not much to go on, but the story has a ring of truth to it. LinkedIn is good at connecting employers and potential employees through social media, but integrating an established job search engine would be an interesting next step for the company. LinkedIn has been on a roll lately, posting impressive quarterly figures and increasing its mobile presence by releasing a well-regarded iPad app.

    What do you think? How would a social network such as LinkedIn use a job search engine? Leave a comment below and let us know your ideas.

    (via Reuters)

  • LinkedIn is Worried U.S. Workers Don’t Have The Skills For Available Jobs

    LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner gave a speech at the recent Bay Area Council 2012 Outlook Conference, where he outlined his suggestions for solving a different kind of unemployment crisis: the gap between worker skills and the skills needed for those few jobs that are available. The theme of the conference was “The Next Human Leap,” and Weiner made the point that in making the next leap, we, as a whole, don’t want to leap so far that humans can’t keep up. Weiner points out that that although the unemployment rate sits at around 8.2%, there are 3.5 million available jobs in the U.S.

    “I would posit that at least one major driving factor here is…the pace with which technology and innovation is now accelerating,” said Weiner. “We are outstripping our ability to educate and train the existing workforce.”

    The Bay Area Council is business-sponsored public policy advocacy organization based in the San Francisco Bay area. The group holds the yearly Outlook Conference that highlights future economic and political trends. This year’s conference featured speeches by former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

    Mario Sundar, senior social media manager and the chief blogger for LinkedIn, outlined the main points of Weiner’s speech in a post on the LinkedIn blog. Weiner has a three-pronged solution to ensure that jobs requiring a high level of skill can be filled. First, improving the U.S. education system. Second, make it easier for highly skilled workers to emigrate to the U.S. and fill jobs. Lastly, greater investment in the country’s digital infrastructure.

    Sounds easy, right? Improving education and investing in infrastructure are causes nearly everyone can get behind, yet are much easier said than done. Has Weiner actually come up with workable solutions? Watch Weiner’s entire speech below and decide for yourself. Then, leave a comment and let us know what you think.

  • Not on LinkedIn? Here’s How to Start. [Infographic]

    It may sound trite, but if you want to be hired in 2012, you are going to need a LinkedIn profile. The website tops all other social networks when it comes to finding jobs, and adoption of the site is still growing. The site itself has made some recent improvements, releasing a well-designed iPad app and purchasing online slide presentation startup SlideShare.

    If you don’t already have a LinkedIn profile, however, the prospect can be daunting. You could simply transfer the information on your resume to the site, but that alone isn’t likely to land you a job. As with any social network, the key with LinkedIn is to be social. Make contacts, and inquiries to build your social network of possible employers or co-workers. Show off your previous work and market yourself. Using the site is much the same as other social networks, but if you need some help with the details, the folks at mindflash have got you covered. They have prepared a cheat-sheet full of all the tips you need to make your LinkedIn profile effective:

    LinkedIn Bootcamp: tips to get your profile in shape

    (mindflash via Daily Infographic)

  • Marketing with Social Media Makes Ten Kinds of Win

    Even though most people agree that social media has changed the world of marketing, many businesses still haven’t jumped onboard the social marketing strategy.

    Utilizing social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and even LinkedIn can increase your consumer base, promote engagement with consumers, and help you tailor your advertising campaign to better fit your audience. Additionally, once you begin to track which customers are directed from social media sites, you’ll be able to see how this particular marketing strategy can do wondrous things for you like boost web traffic and increase ROI.

    To illustrate the ins and outs of social media and why you should consider incorporating it into your marketing campaigns, pagemodo put together a great infographic to serve as a primer for marketing in social media.

    Marketing with Social Media

  • LinkedIn Shares HTML5 Infinite Scrolling Tips

    LinkedIn debuted their iPad app, while getting attacked by Syrian hackers, last week to praise for its clean presentation while taking advantage of the iPad’s strengths. One of the major features of the iPad app is its infinite scrolling through the use of HTML5. The engineering team went through a lot of variations to reach the end product and are now sharing their journey with other developers.

    The main hook of the LinkedIn iPad app is its “stream” for infinite content scrolling. This will allow users to have an “engaging content consumption experience.” The only problem with this approach is that mobile devices are not exactly the best when it comes to memory which an infinite scrolling list requires a lot of.

    To circumvent the lack of large pools of memory, the team went the extra mile by building their own solution to this problem. They could have used Apple’s solution that would have allowed for infinite scrolling, but the LinkedIn team apparently wanted the challenge of building their own in HTML5 which currently lacked such a technology. In the end, they obviously succeeded, but they also helped HTML5 developers everywhere by proving it could be done.

    The first technique in streaming large images via HTML5 was to replace the src attribute of the img tag with a small image when it was moved off screen. This allowed the large images to be displayed on screen while saving memory when said images were moved off screen.

    It turns out that making the images small didn’t save enough memory in the long run. To combat this, they bagan to hide pages so that they wouldn’t take up memory as well. They did this by setting the CSS visibility property of a page to hidden. This allowed more memory to be freed up as well as the app running smoother because the browser didn’t have to keep the invisible pages up.

    Apparently those first two techniques helped sove 80 percent of crashes. To help solve crashes for the other 20 percent, the team started to remove pages altogether. They only removed pages that were not required and replaced them with an empty page of equal height and width called a “stub.”

    All of this led to them creating a stream that would have the current page loaded with all images visible with the previous and next pages being fully loaded as well. After that, the second previous and next would be loaded up but didn’t have any images. The next after that would be an invisible page. Once it had gone beyond that, the pages would removed. It’s an ingenious method of keeping infinite scrolling in place without having to sacrifice anything.

    LinkedIn HTML5 Infinite Scrolling

    Now that they had this method in place, they only had to start working on improving the performance of the app. They helped this along by adding in some HTML/CSS optimizations. The first is to avoid client side image scaling. To avoid that, simply specify the width and height attributes of an image in HTML tags. The second is to simply not use CSS box shadow as it has a negative effect on performance.

    All of this work helped keep the app running, but they were still running into crashes now and again. To keep it perfectly stable, they would have to keep the DOM nodes to a minimum. Remember those stub nodes that replaced far off pages in the stream? They were able to combine those stubs into a single dummy node to prevent the app from crashing.

    For those who learn better with visual examples, here’s a video of the LinkedIn team showing off how the DOM changes when a user moves through the stream. Check it out to see some awesome HTML5 magic.

  • LinkedIn Acquires Document Presentation Startup SlideShare

    LinkedIn, the popular professional networking social network, today announced that it will soon acquire SlideShare, a startup that hosts documents and presentations for sharing and display on the web. The company will be purchased for approximately $118.75 million, in a combination of cash and stock.

    “Presentations are one of the main ways in which professionals capture and share their experiences and knowledge, which in turn helps shape their professional identity,” said LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner. “These presentations also enable professionals to discover new connections and gain the insights they need to become more productive and successful in their careers, aligning perfectly with LinkedIn’s mission and helping us deliver even more value for our members. We’re very excited to welcome the SlideShare team to LinkedIn.”

    Over on the LinkedIn blog, Deep Nishar, LinkedIn’s senior vice president for product & user experience, stated that LinkedIn and SlideShare have already been working closely with each other for years. Nishar called himself a “huge fan” of SlideShare and excitedly welcomed the company to the “LinkedIn family.” He also assuaged fears that SlideShare would be changing or going away:

    In the meantime, SlideShare users will continue experiencing this great service as always. SlideShare has done a tremendous job of creating a dynamic platform for document sharing that millions of professionals have come to rely on everyday — and it will remain that way

    SlideShare CEO Rashmi Sinha, who WebProNews interviewed last year, posted a message on the SlideShare blog explaining her reasons for selling the company:

    You could ask why did we agree to sell? For one, I firmly believe that SlideShare will grow faster with LinkedIn. Second, I have watched as LinkedIn has grown from being a place to share your resume to a much richer site, where you go to keep up with what your professional network is doing and sharing. We like the path they are on, and are excited to join them on this journey.

    The LinkedIn prepared a SlideShare presentation to outline the acquisition, which can be seen below. What do you think? Does this purchase make sense for LinkedIn? How do you think LinkedIn will use SlideShare? Leave a comment below and let us know.

    LinkedIn and Slideshare

    View more presentations from LinkedIn

  • LinkedIn Q1 2012 Financial Results Shred Analyst Expectations [UPDATED]

    LinkedIn released its financial results its Q1 2012 results this afternoon and things are looking good for the premier network for professionals. The company’s financial weather vane looks to be pointing north, which was encouraging to LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.

    “LinkedIn’s solid performance in the first quarter built on the company’s momentum in 2011,” Weiner said. “We saw strength across all key metrics from member signups and engagement to significant revenue growth across our three product lines.”

    Some key points:

  • Revenue for the first quarter was $188.5 million, an increase of 101% compared to $93.9 million in the first quarter of 2011.
  • Net income for the first quarter was $5.0 million, compared to net income of $2.1 million for the first quarter 2011. Non-GAAP net income for the first quarter was $16.9 million, compared to $5.8 million for the first quarter of 2011. Non-GAAP measures exclude tax-affected stock-based compensation expense and tax-affected amortization of acquired intangible assets.
  • Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $38.1 million, or 20% of revenue, compared to $13.3 million for the first quarter of 2011, or 14% of revenue.

    • Analysts had expected that LinkIn’s showing for the first quarter would be a strong one, but LinkedIn hurdled over those expectations with impressive ease. Analysts anticipated that LinkedIn’s shares would post at $0.09 but LinkedIn nearly doubled that with the Non-GAAP ES valued at $0.15.

    This is the seventh consecutive quarter that LinkedIn has posted a year-over-year growth of more than 100%. Getting down to the details of LinkedIn’s outstanding performance, Revenue from Hiring Solutions products totaled $102.6 million, an increase of 121% compared to the first quarter of 2011. Hiring Solutions revenue represented 54% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 49% in the first quarter of 2011. On the marketing side, revenue from Marketing Solutions products totaled $48.0 million, an increase of 73% compared to the first quarter of 2011. Marketing Solutions revenue represented 26% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 30% in the first quarter of 2011. Finally, revenue from Premium Subscriptions products totaled $37.9 million, an increase of 91% compared to the first quarter of 2011. Premium Subscriptions represented 20% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 21% of revenue in the first quarter of 2011.

    Revenue from the U.S. totaled $120.8 million, and represented 64% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012. Revenue from international markets totaled $67.6 million, and represented 36% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012.

    Revenue from the field sales channel totaled $101.5 million, and represented 54% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012. Revenue from the online, direct sales channel totaled $87.0 million, and represented 46% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012.

    It’s not even been a year since LinkedIn became the first U.S.-based social network to file an initial public offering and given the company’s steady ascent, it appears that the road ahead is nothing but clear lanes and green lights. It will be interesting to see if LinkedIn’s continued success will affect Facebook’s IPO later this month since it’s been demonstrated that investing in social network companies can be a lucrative investment. Earlier today, Facebook set the price range for its IPO at $28 to $35 a share, putting the company’s value somewhere between $77 billion and $96 billion.

    In the investors conference call following the release of the results, LinkedIn CFO Steve Sordello and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner shared some more details about the first quarter. Sordello said that one of the next goals with mobile user engagement is to focus more on global expansion.

    Speaking of mobile users on LinkedIn, they tend to be some of the more highly engaged members on the site. Weiner cited the mobile applications for LinkedIn, including the recently released iPad app, as being instrumental in the uptick of user engagement. So far, he said, the reception to the iPad app has been encouraging. “We like what we’re seeing,” Weiner said.

    Other new features that contributed to increase in LinkedIn users is the second generation of the People You Might Know feature, which Weiner said has made it easier to link people together through faster and more complex calculations happening behind the scenes.

  • LinkedIn: If it Had Been Released in the 80’s

    SquirrelMonkey continues its nostalgia driven “If (blank) had been invented in the 80’s” series with a new video on the corporate world’s version of Facebook: LinkedIn. They have already done other major social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, now they are delving into the professional world.

    Notable characteristics of this video include the use of CD-ROM instead of internets. The user must print out a form to become a member, mail it in, and in a few weeks they will receive a CD-ROM with their profile on it. I guess that makes it a little difficult to keep track of new members, having to get a new CD-ROM anytime one of your friends signs up.

    At the end she is forced to print out a hard copy and send her job recommendation via snail mail. It’s a wonder anyone was employed in the 80’s. Once again, we are reminded of how much computers sucked back then, but everything had to start somewhere.

    Today LinkedIn is a great tool for networking and finding the perfect job. By combining social media with the job hunting experience, you are now instantly connected to tons of professionals in any field. It makes it a lot easier to get an interview, when you already have connections on the inside. In the past you may have had to make cold call and sent your resume (via snail mail) to someone you just met. And you don’t even need a CD-ROM to sign-up, but then again you probably wouldn’t have had to worry about Syrian hackers back then either.

    So you take the good with the bad. The (professional) world is getting smaller everyday, and you can use it to your advantage, if you play your cards right.

  • Citi Sponsors LinkedIn Group For Professional Women

    Last week Citi and LinkedIn teamed up to launch a LinkedIn group called Connect: Professional Women’s Network, Powered by Citi. It has been designed to appeal to professional women, who control most of the household spending in the U.S. The group will feature regular content updates that will focus on networking skills, tips on career advancement, and a special edition of LinkedIn Today.

    Francesca Levy, an editor for LinkedIn, launched the group with a post, saying:

    I’m excited to launch Connect: Professional Network for Women, Powered by Citi. LinkedIn and Citi hope to make it the go-to resource for news and discussions that will help women be better at what they do, and what they want to do.

    As with many of LinkedIn’s best groups, all contributions here are moderated to ensure a high quality of professional conversation. And, just like in any open group on LinkedIn, your contributions to the conversation here are public and can be discovered by anyone on the Web. I encourage you get in the mix by commenting and starting new discussions. It’s a great way to get connected to lots of truly impressive women.

    We’ve got lots of great news, discussions, videos, polls and more to share with you. Let’s get started!

    Content for the group will also come from Citi’s personal finance website for women, Women & Co. That website strives to provide working women with relevant news, financial ideas, and information through article such as “Homeymoon Planning in the Digital Age” and “Make an Impression in 6 Seconds or Less.”

    Members of the Connect: Professional Network for Women, Powered by Citi group will have exclusive access to a special edition of LinkedIn Today, the dynamic news service from LinkedIn. LinkedIn Today provides custom news tailored for users’ by their interests, peer connections, and industry. The group’s exclusive version will feature articles, trending stories, and original editorial content aimed at professional women’s interests and needs. It will also provide polls, targeted events, and relevant LinkedIn discussions.

    What do you think? Could you use a LinkedIn group built and curated for professional women? Leave a comment and let me know.

  • LinkedIn iPad App Officially Launches

    LinkedIn iPad App Officially Launches

    LinkedIn, the popular business and professional networking social network, has officially launched its new iPad app – and it’s surprisingly robust. The app is available for download in Apple’s App Store, and an announcement has been posted to the LinkedIn blog by Manish Sharma, LinkedIn’s Senior Product Manager for mobile and tablet. The blog was unavailable for some time this morning due to an attack by Syrian Hackers, but the issue has been resolved and the announcement is back up.

    The app has been specifically designed for the iPad to take advantage of multi-touch and the new iPad’s Retina display technology. It looks nothing like the LinkedIn website or the iPhone and Android apps, but it is clear that the long wait for an iPad version has been worth it. The interface shows the care that the LinkedIn design team took to make the app stand out on iPad. Users can view profiles and messages just as in other versions of the app, but where the iPad app really differentiates itself is in the “updates” section.

    The “updates” page in the app makes use of all of the extra space afforded by the iPad. The entire “updates” page is filled with all of the information needed to get caught up on the day’s planning and news. In fact, LinkedIn is promoting it as an app to use while eating breakfast or wrapping up the work day.

    “This was a chance to go back to the drawing board,” said Mario Sundar, social media manager for LinkedIn. “To design it for how people use the iPad: morning and night infotainment.”

    Sharma wrote that LinkedIn wants users of the iPad app to feel as if they have their own personal assistant. Instead of the single stream provided by the iPhone app, the iPad app “update” section splits the information into multiple, easy to read sub-sections, including who has viewed your profile, who is being hired, and the links and info your co-workers are sharing. The page also features a large, visually appealing header section featuring business and networking articles curated by LinkedIn. Take a look at the simplistic, yet information-packed new layout:

    The LinkedIn iPad app

    LinkedIn was also able to fit the calendar onto the “updates” page, where is shows appointments and reminders along the left side of the screen. Even better both the iPad and iPhone apps now take information from your Google or Exchange Calendar and display contact information for people listed in meetings or appointments. That’s a godsend for people who, like me, are terrible with names.

    If you don’t have your iPad handy you can still preview the interface using the Safari browser. It’s not the same as swiping around with your fingers, but it shows off the app interface well.

    LinkedIn has been focusing on its mobile presence over the past year, and it shows. Mobile pageviews of LinkedIn are growing rapidly, making mobile the fastest-growing service the company offers. The company has even released a feature phone app in addition to its smartphone and tablet offerings.

    With its successful IPO last year and its push for a large mobile presence, LinkedIn looks to be the undisputed leader of online professional networking. What do you think? Have you tried the LinkedIn iPad app yet? Let us know in the comments below, and check out what others are saying about the app on Twitter:

    @margearu
    Marge Aru    Have you tried brand new LinkedIn iPad app? Dashboard reminds me a bit of Flipboard. All in all good experience. 1 minute ago via Flipboard ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @lorenzoomandac
    lorenzoomandac    It’s funny how just yesterday I was dissapointed that @linkedin did not have an iPad app and all of a sudden here it is. Great app guys! 3 minutes ago via Twitter for iPad ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @johnolilly
    John Lilly    Wow – I actually like the LinkedIn app calendar integration on my iPhone even better. Nice. 3 hours ago via Tweetbot for iOS ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @christhun
    Chris Thun    Congrats to @mejoff – Love LinkedIn for iPad, esp calendar and news reader #eyecandy http://t.co/6WqFtahE 7 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @chasesa
    Sarah A. Chase    LinkedIn has just launched the most awesome iPad app! Download it now, it’s Facebook for professionals + social reader for your contacts! 13 minutes ago via Facebook ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

  • LinkedIn Blog Attacked by Syrian Hackers

    [UPDATE] The blog is back up.

    [ORIGINAL]
    On the same day that LinkedIn has launched its new iPad app, the announcement of the app on the LinkedIn blog is unavailable. In fact, the entire blog is unavailable due to an attack on the site.

    The Next Web (TNW) is reporting that the blog has apparently been hacked by a group calling themselves the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA). TNW points to a Twitter account that reports SEA hacking:

    @Th3Pr0_SEA
    Th3 Pr0    #SEA #Syria #RealSyria
    @Linkedin Blog http://t.co/xLrhQjA8 Get Hacked By Syrian Electronic Army | http://t.co/P3NsHQZz | @YourAnonNews 18 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    A mirrored link to the blog shows what became of the site. An image of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in front of the Syrian flag took the place of the blog.

    The LinkedIn blog, hacked

    The image was followed by a message from the hackers, excoriating the Syrian National Council as a front of the Muslim Brotherhood:

    “We are a group of Syrian youth who wanted to show the truth and therefore we used this website which was used to spread lies about Syria. We are the Syrian Electronic Army and we come in pekoe for those who want peace for Syria.” [sic]

    It is unclear why LinkedIn was the target of this attack. The manifesto graffiti left on the site doesn’t mention LinkedIn by name at all. The company takes no stance on Syrian politics. The only assumption that can be made at this point is that LinkedIn was targeted because of the iPad announcement. The SEA co-opted the announcement to get their message out. It appears to be an example of the recent rise in “hacktivist” attacks.

    Let’s hope LinkedIn, who was obviously innocent, can get their blog back in shape soon. I hear that new iPad app is a good one.

    (via The Next Web)

  • Linkedin Introduces Talent Pipeline for Recruiting

    Time to get all your leads in one place, regardless of the source. Linkedin has just released their much anticipated Talent Pipeline service for recruiting. They are making it easier to get organized, stay connected and keep everybody you work with in the loop. If you’re in the business of recruiting or managing talent, your life literally just got a whole lot easier. But, it’s not just good news for recruiters, it’s also great for job hunters and contract workers.

    Job seekers always win when coordinators and recruiters can easily find them and get them connected to the right clients. Tools like Talent Pipeline take much of the guess work and leg work out of getting that job done effectively and efficiently. If you’re a job seeker and you’re not on Linkedin, you need to be. If you’re are recruiter and you’re not taking advantage of Linkedin’s recruiting solutions, you’re are wasting a lot of time and energy.

    Lets see what others have to say:

    Jim Schnyder of PepsiCo comments on Talent Pipeline:

    “Talent Pipeline gives you a way to build and leverage just-in-time candidate pools. Think about the possibility of making your talent community come to life.”

    Johanna Danaher, Sr. Manager and Global Talent Acquisition at Pfizer also comments on Talent Pipeline:

    “Talent Pipeline’s power lies in its ability to develop what is initially just a lead into an active candidate and to deepen your candidate pipeline based on that candidate’s connections. This is a true global differentiator.”

    Take a look at LinkedIn’s Talent Pipeline Video:

    Take a look at what Linkedin says the key enhancements will be with these new recruiting tools:

    * Import contacts and manage them in Recruiter

    * Use tags to highlight skills, attributes, and experience

    * Mark and track the lead sources so you can keep track of where you get the best leads

    * Search within updates members of your team have added

    * Filter searches based on activities and mailings

    * Perform bulk actions like mailing, updating, and notes right from your search results screen

    * Update and view status as a lead processes through the pipeline

    * View actionable reports that help manage pipeline efficiency and health

    Here’s their sales pitch:

    LinkedIn Talent Pipeline gives you one place to grow, track, and stay connected with all of your talent leads. It’s built right into LinkedIn Recruiter, providing instant access to 150M+ professionals and your own potential candidates, at no additional cost. It’s a simple way to reduce your time to hire by helping to build and manage a pipeline of talent before they become formal applicants in your ATS.

  • LinkedIn Open-Sources its iPhone Navigation Code

    LinkedIn, the popular business and career networking social network, announced that it would be releasing the navigation code from its simplified iPhone app as an open source library. Sudeep Yegnashankaran, a mobile software “imagineer” for LinkedIn, made the announcement in a LinkedIn Engineering blog post. Using the library, called LIExposeController, developers can “easily create multiple, visually distinct areas in their apps for ease of flow for their users.”

    LIExposeController is available now at GitHub, and works for both iPhone and iPad apps. The library is a new container view controller class similar to UINavigationController and UITabBarController. In his blog post Yegnashankaran wrote a little about what the code has to offer developers:

    With this new experience, users can easily switch between different areas of the app in a visually pleasing way. We have gotten a lot of great feedback for this brand new navigation scheme, with a lot of our users calling it “easy to navigate” and “fun.” We chose this model over a standard tab bar because we wanted something more visual and tactile, giving users more context for the different areas of the app.

    The LinkedIn iPhone app

    The code does not use the new container controller APIs in the iOS 5 SDK in order to continue support for iOS 4 devices. However, LinkedIn is encouraging developers to fork the code and submit contributions, so that functionality could soon be implemented.

    Will you try out LinkedIn’s navigation system on your new app? Are you sticking to the tried-and-true tab bar navigation? Let us know in the comments section below.

  • LinkedIn Opens New Hong Kong Office

    LinkedIn Opens New Hong Kong Office

    LinkedIn, the social network for business professionals, has just announced on its blog that it’s opened an office in Hong Kong, the 9th of which lies in the Asia-Pacific region. Linkedin presently has roughly 25 million members in the region, including Japan, where it also recently opened an office in Tokyo. Hubs were also set up in Bangalore, India and in Melbourne and Perth, Australia. India currently has over 14 million users, and Australia reports over 3 million. Interestingly, roughly 60% of business professionals in Australia use Linkedin.

    A Korean-language version of the social network is now online, as well local language sites for Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia. In line with a bid for international growth, Linkedin also opened an office in Spain, and launched versions of the site in Polish, Czech and Dutch. The Hong Kong location marks the 25th office globally, and Linkedin sports over 47 million users at present.

    With the rapid expansion, one would think that LinkedIn would be more than barely profitable. The company posted a revenue of $522 million for 2011, though it also hired 531 new sales and marketing professionals, and saw a net income last year of $26 million. Still, expansion costs money. LinkedIn’s take on the matter – “We plan to continue to invest heavily in sales and marketing to expand our global footprint, grow our current customer accounts and continue building brand awareness. In the near term and consistent with our investment philosophy for 2011, we expect sales and marketing expenses to increase on an absolute basis and as a percentage of revenue and to be our largest expense on an absolute basis and as a percentage of revenue.”

  • BranchOut Facebook App Raises $25 Million

    BranchOut, the Facebook app for business professional networking, announced today a $25 million Series C funding from Mayfield and others, bringing its total tally to $49 million. BranchOut has been around for about two years, and is similar to the business-oriented social network LinkedIn, though it relies of Facebook’s network.

    BranchOut users potentially have access to Facebook’s 800+ million users, as opposed to LinkedIn’s roughly 150 million users. And, soon after BranchOut released its mobile app, its user base jumped from 400,000 to 13 million, indicative of its viability as an alternative to LinkedIn. BranchOut CEO Rick Marini sees Facebook’s larger user base as affording a better selection in the types of careers available to pursue, also considering Facebook’s broad demographic. Marini states, “LinkedIn is somebody I meet at a conference for 5 minutes. Facebook are (sic) my real friends and family, my supply network. These are people who will go out of their way to help me get a job.”

    BranchOut is banking on the notion that since Facebook is a larger, more personal network, stronger personal business relationships can be forged, and with 800 million active users, more opportunity is present by default. Investors appear to agree, with the latest round of funding. Come to think of it, the whole point of LinkedIn’s lack of personability goes along the lines of the general and legitimate carrer environment in the U.S. What Marini mentions about BranchOut makes it sound like it would be more useful in finding a gig digging holes in a neighbors yard or something.

  • LinkedIn Introduces New Marketing Tools

    LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, saw a revenue of $522 million in 2011, though its net income was only $22 million, considering the company hired 531 new executives during that time frame. LinkedIn had stated that it was more focused on brand awareness and upping its user base than profitability. Though after a bit of time to let things settle, the company appears to refocusing on profitability, and is set to launch its LinkedIn Targeted Updates and Follower Statistics, a more robust marketing and analytics tool, to help brands forge a more effective following in a business context.

    linkedin marketing

    LinkedIn’s early launch partners include AT&T, Dell, Microsoft, and Samsung Mobile, who have commenced using the new follower tools. LinkedlIn, being much more of a business-focused social networking environment than say, Facebook, sees its unique follower ecosystem as ideal for more targeted marketing. Marketing content can now be adjusted to industry, seniority, job function, company size, non-company employees and geography, and marketers have access to an insights field, to monitor progress in acquiring new followers, engagement metrics – including likes, shares, comments, and percentage of engagement over time – and reviews of followers’ demographic information.

    LinkedIn has offered some stats about its platform – 63% of users expect companies to have a LinkedIn presence, with 70% stating that they’d follow a company’s profile on the site – 64% would indefinitely. LinkedlIn users who follow company pages are twice as connected as the average member, being in twice as many groups in the network. Roughly half (49%) claim they would be more apt of buy a product or service from a company they are following that is more engaged with its followers, and 47% state that LinkedIn is a more appropriate venue for learning company news, than say, Facebook.

    Though, like Facebook, Linkedin has its own ‘follow company’ button, similar to the ‘Like’ tab. Interestingly, a recent study has shown that Facebook still holds its own against LinkedIn regarding business to business marketing, when the latter would appear to be the better choice first off.

  • Grand Theft Auto V Release Date in October?

    Grand Theft Auto V is being developed by Rockstar North studio located in Edinburgh, Scotland. According to his LinkedIn page Alex O’Dwyer is employed as a character animator at Rockstar North and stated that Grand Theft Auto V will launch this October.

    O’Dwyer has taken down his CV and edited his LinkedIn page since the leak so for now joystiq.com says it is just a rumor for the time being.

    Some fans of the game tweeted that they are not moved and claim that it is just another bleep from a rumor mill. Others fans are ecstatic and hope to interface with the new virtual world as soon as possible:

    @jimreilly
    Jim Reilly    Somehow I don’t think we’ll see BioShock Infinite and Grand Theft Auto V released in the same month. 17 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @lukibas21
    Lukito Baskoro    Puking rainbows–> “@gamespot: Grand Theft Auto V is coming this October, according to an employee’s resume. http://t.co/Dz8uUMUV“ 6 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @gamespot
    GameSpot.com    Grand Theft Auto V is coming this October, according to an employee’s (since removed) resume. http://t.co/w5AyPENI 11 minutes ago via HootSuite ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @ElectronicsLvr
    Jim Fischer    Gameranx: There ‘s no real reason to expect that any of what I ‘m about to post below is true, althou #games #gamenews http://t.co/sZA7NkZu 3 days ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @kkiller14
    Keshav    Grand Theft Auto V release date leaked ? http://t.co/dbozwGLa via @theINTELblog 5 days ago via dlvr.it ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    The trailers for the game have attracted millions of viewers.

    The following YouTube video is the first official trailer for the game:

    Do you think that this will be the best Grand Theft Auto ever?

  • Using Social Media To Find A Job [INFOGRAPHIC]

    The economy is struggling to get back on its feet and if you’re looking for a job, you’re going to have to leverage all your skills as well as all available resources. And yes, your Facebook account can help you land that job.

    Well, probably your LinkedIn account more than your Facebook account.

    OnlineDegrees.com has unveiled a nifty little inforgraphic about how companies are leaning on social media more than ever in the job search – and how you can use that to your advantage. Most all job recruiters are currently hiring candidates via LinkedIn (94.5%), and they are even using Twitter and Facebook to a lesser degree (42% and 33%, respectively).

    On the employer end, most of their time spent on various social networks include looking for potential candidates and posting job offerings.

    On the prospective employee’s end, they suggest making a quick impression. Apparently, people only spend about 5.7 seconds looking at a person’s social media profile. That means your picture, job title, and any other quick information at the top is what has the most chance of being seen.

    Of course, we also know that social media can be a liability to your job search as well. Employers scouring Facebook and Twitter to learn information about you will naturally unconver any damning evidence along with the good stuff. You’ve got to keep your social accounts free of the “fun” stuff by being vigilant of your privacy settings.

    Being vigilant with your privacy settings won’t help if your employer is demanding your social media passwords, however, but that’s a whole other argument.

    Check out the full infographic below:

    How to use social media to land a job
    Courtesy of: OnlineDegrees.com

  • The Social Job Search [Infographic]

    The Social Job Search [Infographic]

    The job market may be getting better as we enter into 2012, but finding a position that meets your employment requirements and suits your skill-set is harder than ever. In fact, one of the most difficult challenges employers face is finding qualified candidates to fill their open position.

    This next infographic from OnlineDegrees.Com addresses the issue of being seen in a job market full of applicants. How do you get recognized? You have to be found in the same circles your prospective employers travel in. It used to be called networking, now we call social networking. All kidding aside, you have to make connections with the right people. Platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter make networking easier than ever.

    If you’re looking for a new job or you want to shed the shackles of your current position, you need to study this graphic. Knowing the ins and outs of social networking as part of your job hunt is literally going to put you at the head of the pack. If you don’t have a presence on the same social media sites potential employers are using, you won’t get that vital opportunity to appear on their radar. Take a look: