Wow! A profitable Web 2.0 company! Who knew?!

Posted by Jim Stroud

March 12, 2006

WoW! How unusual… A Web 2.0 company that is actually profitable!! Check out this press release.

LinkedIn Corporation today announced that due to the rapid adoption of its premium services, the company expects to reach profitability this month. LinkedIn’s premium accounts were introduced just seven months ago and are priced between $60 and $2,000 per year. LinkedIn closed venture capital rounds of $4.7 million and $10 million in November 2003 and October 2004, respectively, and will not require any additional investment to fund business operations.

LinkedIn’s emphasis for the next six to nine months will be to broaden the utility of its offerings that are free to all members. Currently, the most active members are those who frequently need to contact professionals as part of their job: recruiters, analysts, researchers, investment professionals, entrepreneurs and management consultants. Hiring managers and job seekers also search on LinkedIn whenever they need to identify top recruits or inside connections to employers.

Relationships matter to professionals across all industries and functions, and LinkedIn’s product initiatives for 2006 aim to make LinkedIn the most useful business web site for over ten million professionals across the globe.

Recently, LinkedIn launched new features to help members re-connect with past co-workers and classmates free of charge. In the coming months, LinkedIn will provide its members with updates about their colleagues on their home pages, including who has a new email address, who got promoted and who is hiring — making it fast and easy for members to stay in touch and strengthen ties with their existing network of business contacts. And as most seasoned professionals know, the best opportunities tend to come through one’s network of relationships.

Increasingly, success in business is no longer based on what or even who you know, but who your contacts know. LinkedIn is developing sophisticated matching technology to identify relevant contacts for members among the people their connections know. For job seekers, LinkedIn has already begun recommending jobs offered by people their colleagues know.

READ: LinkedIn Premium Services Finding Rapid Adoption

Tags: linkedin, web2.0, Internet