LinkedIn's Skill Endorsements

LinkedIn added the ability to add Skills to one's profile a while ago - I can't recall when. Recently, they have added the ability for members of one's network to endorse your skills.

Previously, one endorsed a colleague who shared a common workplace and one wrote 30-50 words about why your colleague was a good bloke / gal. I used my recommendations with care and only added them to people that really valued.

Too many times, other people's recommendations are cut 'n' paste':

I had the pleasure of working with XXXX at YYYYY. He / She was excellent. I would recommend him / her to anyone.

Hmm, very considered.....

Endorsing skills

Endorsing Skills has added a level of irritation to LinkedIn and may devalue its core offering, as the process has become very slutty. 

Here's the process:

1. You receive an email from LinkedIn, saying that a colleague has endorsed you for a particular skills
2. You click to view it and to add it to your profile.
3. You are then presented with four colleagues with a skill next to each of their names underneath a banner above it that says 'Now, it's your turn...' and a big button that says 'Endorse'.

Conclusion: it is hardly difficult to do.... which therefore devalues its act.

Peter Cochrane espresses my sentiments well: LinkedIn endorsements: I’m not sure I approve.

LinkedIn's IPO and Lumpy Bubbles

The LinkedIn IPO on NY Stock Exchange (not the NASDQ) on 20th May generated a frenzy of debate on the front page of business sections. Here are the bare bones of the story:

• The company had hired Morgan Stanley and Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch division to manage the I.P.O. process. After gauging market demand — which is what they’re paid to do — the investment bankers priced the shares at $45. 
• The 7.84 million shares it sold raised $352 million for the company. For this, the bankers were paid 7 percent of the deal as their fee.
  The price soared on the first day to $120 in intra day trading. The price has remained above $70 per share since then.

(Source: Google Finance)

I, like others eg NY Times' Joe Nocera think that LinkedIn's were (embarrassingly) poorly advised by Morgan Stanley.

This first day trading spike generated lots of chatter about another bubble. Here's the graphic from the Economist article: Welcome to IPOville - Social-media firms see champagne; others see bubbles




My view from this side of the Atlantic is much more conservative. There are pockets of frothiness, but it isn't across multiple sectors or sustained. Some companies will generate a disproportionate amount of interest (and column inches), but outside of that one company under the spotlight, there isn't tremendous demand pushing up prices across multiple companies.

I agree with this sentiment expressed in the Register: There is no big Silicon Valley tech bubble, says VC king in early May.

Forget what you may have heard: there is no massive tech bubble in Silicon Valley.

Instead there are hundreds of little bubbles, and they're set to begin popping at the end of this year. That's according to investor and "co-maintainer" of the bubble-blowing AngelList, Naval Ravikant. 

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures expressed it well at the end of April this year in a blog post, The Word Bubble:

But I am equally sure that we are in the glass is half full part of the cycle. Investors are focusing on the upside and ignoring the downside. That part of the investment cycle lasts for a while and then things change and investors focus on the downside and ignore the upside. Markets are defined by greed and fear. We are in the greed mode right now. 

Unfortunately, all these column inches will distract lots of people which will self stoke the entrepreneurial / VC sectors into investing in some very questionable businesses and markets.

I envisage danger down the line.

LinkedIn has 100million users

Congratulations to LinkedIn for punching through 100 million users recently. I received an email from Reid Hoffman, CEO, as one of the first million users (actually I was one of the first quarter of a million users) to say thank you for spreading the gospel in the early days.

Here's the blog post announcing the milestone. And here's a page full of stats on LinkedIn's members. For me the most interesting is 1.3+ billion connections between our members - clearly it depends on how you determine what a connection is (does it include a post in a Group for example?).

All good news when you consider that LinkedIn has filed for IPO in January this year. Key figures: Net revenue in the first nine months of 2010 was $161 million, with a profit of $10 million.

LinkedIn's Intelligent Application Platform

LinkedIn has arrived that it's permitting third parties build applications for use within its community. (Article from Silicon)

For example, BusinessWeek will integrate LinkedIn onto its news website, allowing people to find out more about individuals or companies mentioned in articles. I can envisage a Snap-type hover over.

We can expect similar announcements from all the companies that are part of Google's Open Social community.

Plaxo & LinkedIn sync up

The two strongest social network software providers for business users, Plaxo & LinkedIn, have produced a cross-network sync, so that Plaxo contacts can be synced with LinkedIn contacts.

Clearly, if you have extrapolate the utility of this feature, then you'll want to tie many address books together.... ie around a single identity (well, a reduced number at any rate). I'm surprised it has taken this long to put this together - especially as their offices are about 3 miles apart.