Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family | Hacker News Reader

Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family

blog.pulse.me

92 pointspumpikano40 comments

I don't understand LinkedIn (anymore).

Their business model seems to be to source candidates to recruiters. This may be good for recruiters, but for candidates? I'm not so sure. It's certainly better to have an overall strong online presence (Twitter / Github (if relevant) / personal blog) than contacts on LinkedIn that don't mean anything.

Groups are full of spam.

The website is incredibly unresponsive.

They bought the excellent IndexTank technology and team a while ago, and promptly shut it down (the tech was open sourced though, which is more than can be said for a lot of acquisitions).

It seems they only keep on living because people are somewhat afraid to delete their profile; but everything inside LinkedIn feels dead.

And now Pulse. Who would go to LinkedIn for news??

Pulse says "The company shares (...) our belief in the power of knowledge and elevated discussion".

Elevated discussion? On LinkedIn? Come on!

Yeah that quote drives me crazy. LinkedIn already has those news stories at the top of our home pages--I have shared a couple but I have never seen anyone engage in mine nor others' posts. Unless LinkedIn plans to create a forum for news while utilizing Pulse, I don't get that statement from Pulse. But again, they'd be losing to already-popular forums.

More than anything, I just hope LinkedIn doesn't shut Pulse down. It would be a huge loss to many of Pulse's loyal users.

The top posts seem to have a lot of comments (600+) and likes

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/whoToFollow?strategy=post...

I've been using groups a lot recently and if you post the right stuff it sparks a good discussion. Also sends a fair bit of traffic to my blog.

Agree that the site is unresponsive, badly designed and considering their valuation it seems baffling the state it is in.

I wonder if that new "articles by supposedly influential people" is what makes Pulse a fit for them.

It's certainly better to have an overall strong online presence (Twitter / Github (if relevant) / personal blog) than contacts on LinkedIn that don't mean anything.

One important thing to understand is that LinkedIn isn't just populated by tech folks. LinkedIn is a professional social networking platform that caters to all professions. Your Github / twitter feed might be relevant in the tech industry, but that isn't even an item to think about in most other industries.

LinkedIn is one of the only "social" companies that has demonstrated growth in profitability. They are obviously doing something right. They are making money and demonstrating growth. Where are they going wrong?

I shouldn't have mentioned Github! ;-) Twitter has nothing to do with tech folksiness. The two most prominent Twitter users are Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga.

It's good for them that LinkedIn is making money. But that revenue comes from recruiters, and is only possible if non-recruiters (ordinary folks) get some value out of the system. If normal people don't get any value out of LinkedIn, they will leave (or become dormant) and the revenue from recruiters will dry up. I'm just wondering what that value might be.

I already see many ghost profiles, people who haven't updated their profile in a while or who create a different profile every time they change companies.

I wouldn't bet the farm on LinkedIn. Although for 90M I would (since the farm is worth much less).

But most people aren't going to be prominent on Twitter either, or be prominent anywhere. Most people aren't known. But they still need jobs. Think about someone who works in HR, isn't LinkedIn useful to them?

From: http://www.linkedin.com/about-us

> Our mission is simple: connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful. When you join LinkedIn, you get access to people, jobs, news, updates, and insights that help you be great at what you do.

LinkedIn targets all professionals, not just those that are tech savvy. Most people visit only a handful of websites in a given day; if Linkedin can become a 'good enough' destination for professional news, it has a good chance of becoming part of that handful of websites, if it isn't already. There's some good insight on that here: https://www.quora.com/LinkedIn-Acquisition-of-Pulse-March-20...

Linkedin as a company isn't just about one thing, like adding professional connections for example, much like Apple as a company isn't just about one thing, like making iPhones. As a company, their goal is to build product(s) that align with their mission, and if the stock market is to be trusted as a proxy of how well they're doing that, it appears they're doing pretty well: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=LNKD+Basic+Chart&t=1y

There's a contradiction in terms. The more access I have to "news", the less productive I am. My productivity is positively correlated to the amount of silence I get.

This view is overly-simplistic. There is a difference between being up-to-date on your industry and being distracted.

If you're an SEO, for example, you need to keep up with Google algorithm updates. If you're a doctor, you need to keep up with new drugs and treatments. If you work in marketing, it's important to keep up with your competitors.

I'm not so interested in LinkedIn's news products, but my former employer used them very effectively. Spending all day refreshing Hacker News certainly won't help you be productive, but checking the front page once or twice a day can help you stay abreast of the tech startup industry.

The key is discipline.

Yes, yes, you're right about discipline and the "overly-simplistic" point. I was being sarcastic.

But I really wish my doctors don't count on comments on LinkedIn to keep up with "new drugs and treatments"! I hope they're subscribed to professional journals or go to conferences, etc.

The larger point being, every professional community has its specialized hubs. If LinkedIn strategy is to become the universal professional hub for all... well then that's a "frighteningly ambitious" idea.

I can't see them pulling it off but who knows -- and thanks for pointing it out.

Spoken like an engineer! I have similar sentiment but surprised to learn how much LinkedIn is valued by those outside of software. It's like the GitHub for MBAs when it comes to professional networking/reputation

>It's like the GitHub for MBAs when it comes to professional networking/reputation.

I think that's a very good analogy which applies to a lot more than MBAs. In my experience, the site is incredibly popular with people who work by way networking and recommendations.

>And now Pulse. Who would go to LinkedIn for news??

If I had to guess...

I expect that right now some large number of LinkedIn users only engage with the site when they have an active job search going - not often.

The majority of LinkedIn revenue [1] comes from services sold to recruiters [2]. Recruiters want lots of current, accurate information about potential hires. If people aren't engaging with the site regularly, LinkedIn doesn't have that.

Now, I expect that most people who use Pulse use it daily, several times a day in my case.

By grabbing Pulse, LinkedIn gets a direct line to the 30M people who use the app and all sorts of information about their habits.

They'll now have an attractive, useful app from which to launch engagement with the site in order to improve the core "talent soltutions" product, drive content into their communities and drive better targeted advertising [3] (their second largest source of revenue) [1] back to those users via Pulse.

1:http://www.ere.net/2013/02/07/as-revenue-soars-linkedin-anno...

2: http://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions

3: http://marketing.linkedin.com/

The "LinkedIn is useless" meme that seems popular here really baffles me, to be honest. Yes, there are many LinkedIn features that I don't get value from (including the news feed and endorsements). But I've found it invaluable for the one core feature it was built on: keeping in touch with your professional contacts. I'm not going to add all my former co-workers, the interesting people I talk to at conferences and counterparts at other companies on Facebook. I don't care what their kids are doing, or where they went on vacation. But I do want to know if they move to some other interesting job, find out if they're hiring or, most importantly, reach them in the future if I would like their advice or help. With my LinkedIn network, if I ever want to reach someone at Company X, whether it be to talk about a job opportunity or to tell them their API is broken, all I have to do is search that company name. Up comes a list of people at that company, and how connected I am to them. If I don't know anyone who currently works there, I probably know someone who does, and can get an introduction.

Before LinkedIn, I'd take business cards or exchange emails with contact information. I'd try to remember to enter it into my addressbook, or file it somewhere I can find it later. Good luck searching it, and if you do find someone and they've moved to a new job, the contact info you have might be totally out of date anyway.

It isn't just a hyped up resume. A great Github profile, blog or Twitter account does little to replace LinkedIn's functionality. If you're looking at it as just a way to be found by recruiters, you're doing it wrong. It's about keeping in touch with a broad network of professional contacts. Not people I talk to every day, but people I like, respect, and know I can reach out to if I need help (and vice versa). Despite all the annoying things they do, I find it extremely useful.

A lot of HN users dump on any social network that isn't Facebook (or their new version for dogs, of course). Never mind that LinkedIn is quite useful, and the only social network that actually has managed to monetize itself reasonably well...

Well said. LinkedIn is also useful if you want more information on a company (if, say, you are considering working there). Search for the company and see who works there. Checking out a few of the profiles of people working there to get a sense of who they are (what they know, where they worked before etc). If you know any of them, or are linked, it's an extra bonus.

Upvoted. I really don't see myself using LinkedIn this way, but I understand that you do.

(All my LinkedIn contacts are people I know personaly. When I need to contact them I use my address book where I store their personal email address, and mobile phone # which aren't on LinkedIn. If I need to contact someone I don't know, I don't think about going through LinkedIn; maybe I should.)

I created an email address just to weed out LinkedIn spam. There are no verified recruiters. There are "recruiters". You create an a/c and broadcast "hey, I'm a recruiter give me your contact details!". You say 'yes' and LinkedIn gives it to them. Good thing is you've to shy 'yes'.

Now that email "career.linkedin.XXX@gmail.com" has an amount of spam that shames my other (spam friendly) email ID I've been using for 3 years.

All the offers I've received via LinkedIn are well, below below standard. I've received better (a lot) offers from job portals. Or directly dropping your resume at companies' portals still works the best.

I really do not see where LinkedIn fits in my life and I, sure as hell, don't see where LinkedIn fits in with Pulse and Rapportive and elk.

"Job portal"

A what?

I too am definitely confused by LinkedIn. I feel the key value addition there is having a professional profile on the internet. The other things they keep doing like endorsements, news, mentions, I feel they don't really add significant value.

I don't have a LinkedIn profile, never had one and don't see why I ever would want one anyway?

We have xing over here, which seems to be the local rip-off - and it's useless crap. I don't like FB or most things online with a 'social' label, and these sites seem to be 'FB without games'. I don't get the appeal. I don't understand the target group (ignoring recruiters).

Congrats to the pulse founders for entering the millionaire club.

Sucks that they have to pretend to be excited about joining LinkedIn and likely suffer there for a few years, but every rose has a thorn.

My friends startup was acquired by LinkedIn, 2 year vesting period that is heavily backloaded.

Please elaborate. Backloaded? In terms of what?

In terms of cash. So they might get 10% up front and larger portions as they near the end of the vesting period.

Apparently, LinkedIn paid them 90M - http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/11/linkedin-acquires-pulse-for...

Wow. There are so many RSS readers but congrats to Pulse team on executing well.

How it fits into LinkedIn's product roadmap?

I love Pulse. They built a great app and I'm really happy for them, so this isn't a critique, but were they really worth 90M? I get that most of it was in stock, but damn.

I guess it was more of a team/userbase acquisition, similar to the Dropbox/Mailbox deal. Either way, congrats guys!

Isn't stock == cash when the acquiring company is public?

Assuming a vesting period, that implies much less liquidity from the deal, and very much relies on the longterm value of the stock. IMO, stock later is worth much less than cash now.

Exactly. And stock is typically much cheaper for a company to spend than actual cash.

A perfect example of this was the Facebook-Instagram acquisition. It was right before Facebook had their IPO, so it was much cheaper for them. Ironically, since Facebook's share price dropped so quickly after IPO, that billion dollar valuation ended up being closer to $715M

source -- http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/24/3551872/facebook-instagra...

For a company like Linkedin which has been on the market for a while, you can buy a bunch of put options. It comes with a cost obviously, but it's a good hedge for an all stock transaction.

IIRC this is what Mark Cuban did when he sold his company to Yahoo!

No. Typically that stock comes with a constraint. When the company I helped start was acquired in 1999 there was an 18 month 'hold' on selling stock resulting from the transaction.

The math did not work out in my favor :-)

I'm optimistic because I love Pulse and Linkedin has definitely been pushing into the news feed space so it makes a lot of sense.

Slightly concerned though because of what happened to CardMunch.

Either way, grats to the pulse team!

Way to go Akshay Kothari!

I love Pulse, it's my favorite mobile news reader by far.

I hope they do a better job with Pulse than they have with Rapportive

Congrats to the pulse team. Also, dammit.

Great stuff from the pulse guys!

congrats, guys!

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