LinkedIn has hit 50 million users, according to a blog post today, growing from 45 million users two months ago. And according to the latest comScore data, LinkedIn is steadily growing in terms of unique visitors. For September, LinkedIn had 9 million unique visitors in the U.S. compared to 8.7 million unique visitors in August. But it appears that LinkedIn’s growth is mainly attributed to a burgeoning international user base. Worldwide, LinkedIn grew from 18 million unique visitors in July to 20 million unique visitors in August.
The network’s CEO, Jeff Weiner, said in the post that half of LinkedIn’s membership is international, with 11 million users in Europe and 3 million users in India, which is seeing the fastest rate of adoption of LinkedIn. Weiner added that it took just 12 days for the network to accumulate the latest million users.
Founder Reid Hoffman recently changed the guard at the company, with Weiner taking the helm as CEO in June. While LinkedIn is a strong IPO candidate, Hoffman recently told us that he’s not in any rush to go public. The company was valued at around $1 billion in its last round of financing in 2008, and has been profitable for the past years.
Rumors have been flying around about LinkedIn potentially buying German social network Xing, which Hoffman told us that this wasn’t happening. But if LinkedIn is growing so fast in Europe and other international markets, perhaps they don’t need Xing to add more users.
Amazing job done by the LinkedIn group. Their service has only grew to become better and more dynamic.
I think they had the right business model from the beginning and the perfect balance of privacy and availability only through known connections.
InMail is great also, though I know a few executives at the bigger companies are probably swamped with them at this point.
LinkedIn is ridonc. I’ve had WAY more leads/business activity on Facebook.
True. I actually have more business activity on Twitter and Facebook than Linkedin. Just like how everyone has a junk email account, LinkedIn has become my junk network account as well.
I joined a few groups, but the daily spam is intense. I can see it be very useful for sales leads and business development. I’m trying to create a sports social network but their are a lot out there and its just about marketing, having the best functions, and layout.
I’m impressed with the improvements made by the LinkedIn team, and I truly value my account. I don’t use the service to generate leads, but instead use it to learn more about the relationships and connections I already have, and to share with others more about me and my company. My biz is primarily a B2B and we get a significant amount of traffic to our site from LinkedIn — much of that referral traffic is prospects researching our team members before reaching out to us directly.
Any service that has a pricing power from the beginning has a great business model. Something we seem to forget.
Thats great!
the only thing LinkedIn is good for is to keep track of where everybody is working at.
According to Compete, only about 15M users are using the service per month. The rest are either fake accounts or people who don’t check their LinkedIn account for 2-3 months.
does 9 million uniques mean that approximately 1 in 5 users use linkedin monthy. how many of those uniques where just passer byes? stats we need to hear are: time on site, return visits, engagement, business success stories as a result of using linkedin. the important stats we will never hear about. the domain name linkedin is weak. when are they gonna buy the domain link.com or linked.com? they should merge with a serious social network player. they need a greater universal social appeal to better brand and attract a broader audience. as a stand alone they are weak. any major social site can plug in the functionality of linkedin and put them too sleep in a heartbeat. business.facebook.com? facebook.com/pro? the possibilities are endless.
I don’t think you get it. Linkedin serves a very different purpose from say, Facebook. It is NOT a social network. It is a professional network, more like a modern business card holder.
People are not SUPPOSED to spend a lot of time on Linkedin. It’s not a place where you go to tell your friends you just went hiking, or post baby pictures. It is businesslike- you only go there when you want to do somethign specific like find a job, contract, etc. Using the same metrics as you would use for facebook is comparing Apples and Oranges.
I love it, it is great source for business information
it’s incredibly pointless. i’d much rather use facebook.
I wish it is a place to find business leads, but sadly, it isn’t for me.
Anyone else abandoned their linkedin after finding it fruitless as well?
FYI — The thumbnail image on the homepage for this article is broken.
I remember Reid Hoffman suggesting they could go public whenever they wanted (and I think that was during the death march last fall), but looks like he’s right. Good for them. It’s a great useful tool for a lot of people. I check in all the time for business and facebook for social.
Its an essential service. I watched Techcrunch’s interview with Reid Hoffman – he did a nice job of explaining why LinkedIn is necessary even to those people who do an enormous amount of networking on Facebook and other social media sites.
I really suspect that they are growing because spammy headhunter types are growing their networks on linkedin. Most linkedin users were told that they had to be on linkedin by some spamming recruiter. They are currently providing an alternative to the failing job search sites, but they are not innovative or revolutionary because they a closed api and a bland and disconnected community. Eventually web 2.0 will become irrelevant just like web 1.0 did.
Hmm, quite clear why Techchrunch is always writing good news about LinkedIn… but never Mike himself, to avoid the “disclosure” statement
AFAIK they have no grip in Europe. Yes, everyone with an international business background is REGISTERED on LinkedIn. But basically just to leave a business card on the platform. REAL ACTIVITY is done via Twitter, Facebook. Or via the local platforms like Xing and others.
I hate using linkedin, and deleted it from my iPhone. The web interface is terrible. And I’ve never gotten any work/business from it.
Since day one, LinkedIn has been very, very, very slow for me, often to the point of timing out when I try to do anything. Apparently this affects a reasonable number of users. As such I try and avoid using it as much as possible as it is a chore.
I check it maybe once a month, if that.
Open your API LinkedIn! You are missing out.
Are the rumors true that Linkedin has low revenue? Its so difficult to figure out if any of these social networks are profitable.
I used to stick to Facebook and Twitter, but I have discovered LinkedIn recently. I have been using it. It has its own niche that it fulfills.
Businessweek was also worth $1B not too long ago and they were sold for less than $5M just earlier this week.
It’s really interesting. Keep it up