LinkedIn plans to go public in 2011

Disclosure: I used to work for LinkedIn.

I think there could be a first mover advantage in the social networking IPO space. In terms of Twitter, FB, LinkedIn, etc, there is not a lot of reputable data about what kind of revenue and profit levels can be generated from a big social networking site. If you're the first company in that space to file and IPO, then you might get more leeway from investors because they don't have anything else to compare to. If you're not the first, then you might be scrutinized more.

I imagine because it opens the way for being part of the various tech funds that want to expose investors to the upside of web properties. If they get out there first then fund managers are likely to want to invest.

Let me offer a counter point of view.

LinkedIn knows me and it know my colleagues and my work history. My interactions on LinkedIn are more formal and even more cordial than my interactions on FB or here.

If you were a HP/IBM/ any large tech vendor in charge of Financial /banking vertical, you could find me and reach me through LinkedIn and I would hear your pitch, just out of courtesy to my colleague who introduced you. The value of this interaction is what LinkedIn captures.

If I were looking for a job at a company, I would be able to get an introduction to someone at that company through my LinkedIn contacts. At FB, everyone seems to be sharing their vacation pictures and hookup/breakup stories.

I will guess the CPM on LinkedIn for targeted ads and brand building campaigns would be much more lucrative than on FB. And sales and marketing folks of vendors that sell to businesses would pay for premium membership as well. And so would job seekers.

It is very useful in the B2B space. Organically, being able to figure out who you know at a company and have them make an introduction for a sale/biz dev/recruitment opportunity is a big deal. Advertising-wise, it lets you target based on occupation. Many of the brands I do advertising for find LinkedIn a very effective buy.

It's just you. LinkedIn leads to tons of joint ventures, employee hires, and other critical business events.

For developers, it's mostly just a place to get offered jobs. But for business-types, it's a vast network of powerful people that are remarkably easy to reach out and touch.

yeah same, i haven't logged in for a year at least...but it's still useful when you are on the other end trying to look someone else up.

I don't think Facebook would be able to challenge LinkedIn without branching out to a new domain name...i dunno something like workbook.com

I only have about 60 connections. But some of those 60 connections have hundreds of connections. So it is pretty easy to see where someone is working now (assuming they work in technology/marketing and keep their LinkedIn profile up to date). I think of it as a 'Alumni Directory' of sorts - where alumni is anyone you've every worked with (or even someone you'd like to work with).

Recruiters love LinkedIn, and pay lots of money for LinkedIn Pro accounts. If you're not getting regular mail from recruiters on LinkedIn, you either don't have enough buzzwords in your profile or don't live in a big city.

It's also the place to separate your work life from your social life. Your LinkedIn profile is strictly business. I wouldn't work for anyone who would hire me based on my Facebook profile, and my FB friends don't really care what I do for work.

I've seen recruiting agencies using it to contact potential employees. So there's a use case. You can put in language names in the "keywords" section on advanced search, and it becomes a nifty tool to find people skilled in those languages (near you). Probably a godsend for recruiting agencies.

I do not, nor shall I ever have an FB account. I have a linkedin account and I find it very valuable from a professional perspective - I can keep track of all the people I used to work with and what companies they are at.

I don't need to spend time on the site daily, or even weekly, all my interactions with real friends are through in person meetups, dinner, email IM and phone conversations.

any of the people I know, professionally, I am only interested in their professional persona - not their pets, relationship status, pictures of friends etc...

Further, I don't want to share anything more than my professional persona gratis de defacto with the world.

Let me ask you, ar you younger than 27?