Comment by wildmXranat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wildmXranat | Hacker News Reader

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Of all the Social* out there, LinkedIn seemed the most purpose driven. The real issue with it is that there is no benefit in being a member of it. It matters to firms and recruiters and if that wasn't shitty enough, LinkedIn will rank higher in search engine results for your name that something you might have published yourself. In return, I give employees bonus points for getting to the top of search results on their own, using their own skills and not a fill-in the blanks template profile site.

That correlates to my main question of: why is LinkedIn valuable to the tune of $35 / share? Is it because they just started to rake in some profits for the first time from their job listing service ? Is it the secondmarket hype ? Is it because Sequoia capital has it in their best interest ? Maybe it's just because they re-branded their service as hiring solutions, added value to advertisers and rode the wave that Facebook created.

Do away with it and invest time in making an employee/career profile for yourself. It's a joke how LinkedIn is more of the same that didn't work for employees in the past.

As far as I am aware LinkedIn have been profitable for a while even before the news features.

They have 100 Million users

Loads of data

It's invaluable for employers like myself.

I have several times been contacted with regards to jobs by recruiters and I can see they went to my account.

It's a great verification tool

Their API's are pretty cool.

To me LinkedIn is the one social network that shuts up and just let me build relationships without asking me to participate every day.

So I think your characterization is unfair and wrong.

LinkedIn is going to be around for a long time.

They have 100 million users because it's impossible to close an account.

It's not impossible at all; I closed my account last year.

https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/63

I found it impossible to do so some years ago, and my account has been left dormant ever since as a result. I'm sure I'm not the only person who faced this problem.

YES! It was impossible for me to close my account.

I emailed them repeatedly and they claimed my account was closed. Then someone sent me a message (because my account was still appearing on the site..) and it REOPENED my account and I started getting email about it again. LinkedIn is the WORST.

Why would you want to close your account? That's like throwing out your rolodex.

Do you work for LinkedIn?

That's a great question. The answer is no, but had you used LinkedIn that would have been easy to figure out.

How do I downvote?

Pass a karma threshold, which raises over time due to karma inflation.

I agree with @ThomPete. The value I get from it is:

- Ideal for work colleagues especially from previous work. I keep my Facebook to IRL friends and Twitter is fully open but linked in is that nice middle ground for colleagues.

- Weak connections - I subscribe to the RSS feed of updates, filtered out new connections and when someone joins a new firm or gets a new title, I just send them an email with a congratulations. Like Facebook news, an update can prompt a catch-up that I would not have thought of before

- Groups - groups are a lot more focused and active than Facebook. I have had good responses and engagement to blog posts and participated in some good discussions in niche areas like NFC security or security architecture, security in agile development

- Recruitment - as Thom says I have had recruiters contact me based on Linked in. Most people are hesitant to provide a written reference but on linked in I have got quite a number of recommendations which are basically the same thing.

- 2nd and 3nd contacts at prospective clients / firms - if you are considering joining a new company you can see who in your network knows someone that works there.

I think they will continue to do well and could be one of these IPO's that provide a lot of value to early investors.

I find it to be a tool to find and research prospective employees. I've hired multiple programmers from the site; some I found on LinkedIn, some I've looked up more information on someone who sent me their resume.

Like most tools, they are largely worthless unless you know how to use them properly...

Why is it worth $x? Simply put, because that's what they will be able to sell at. As to why that is, one could argue that it is in part because of a tech bubble, but the most obvious and simple reason is indeed the rate of growth in their revenue and profit.

I do disagree with your view that there is no benefit to being on LinkedIn. Personally, both my personal website (very low traffic bio site with a few blog posts) and twitter account are ranked above LinkedIn, and I like that LinkedIn is ranked third (that's for a search of my name on Google).

I've never hired or been hired through LinkedIn, but people I want to work with (usually future clients) and people who consider working with me (again, clients) can look me up, and my LinkedIn page helps verify who I am, and what I do, they can see a few endorsements people have given me, and often they can see who they know that knows me.

Also, after meeting someone at an event, a follow up LinkedIn reequest reminds them who you are and helps connect your face to your business card - and visa versa, helps you connect their face/job/etc to their card.

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