LinkedIn

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LinkedIn
LinkedIn-Logo.png
Linkedin-profile.png
"Sample Page" [url LinkedIn]
Type Business-Based Social Media
Launch Date 2003
Status Active
Product Line product
Platform Social Networking
Website LinkedIn.com

LinkedIn is a social networking website designed for those either currently holding a professional career or wishing to expose oneself into the professional world. Often called the "Facebook for professionals", it was founded in December of 2002 in Santa Monica, California and was officially launched in May of 2003. With over 175 million users from across the globe and with different occupations, LinkedIn is meant as a medium in which business-minded users professionally network. Available in over 200 languages, LinkedIn is rated as the third largest social networking website, after Facebook and Twitter.[1] LinkedIn headquarters are located in Mountain View, California. As if of November of 2012, LinkedIn has over 187 million members. Because of the nature of LinkedIn's user base, recruiters can use the site (usually through a paid recruiter account) to research and contact potential new hires. However, there are privacy implications with this power, since recruiter account members can see parts of users' profiles that are marked private, like pictures.

History

The idea of LinkedIn was first thought of by the site's co-founder, Reid Hoffman. A year later in May of 2003, the website went official, and a month later 4,500 members had joined the website. At the end of 2003, there were more than 81,000 members and in 2004, there were over one million. [2]

Reid Hoffman, the prior CEO was previously a Yahoo! executive and along with other members, such as those from PayPal, Socialnet.com, Electronic Arts, Microsoft and others, LinkedIn was launched.[3]

To this day, LinkedIn generates funds from three main sources: Premium subscriptions, corporate solutions, and advertisements.[2] A new member joins LinkedIn about every two seconds, and all Fortune 500 executives have LinkedIn accounts. [2]

Features

LinkedIn Sample Profile

There are features that LinkedIn promotes as being unique to them.

  • Having a resume automatically created using the built in work experiences and educational background, or having the ability to upload their own resume.
  • The ability to write recommendations for other users in order to highlight experiences.
  • The ability to find jobs and bookmark them for later use.
  • The ability to create a list of skills that a user possesses.
  • The ability to view who has viewed your profile.
  • The ability to give endorsement points for each of an individuals skills (*New Feature)

Another new feature that is similar to that of twitter is the ability to now "follow" individuals profiles, and so when they post anything new, you can see notifications.

Linkedin-endorse.jpeg

Membership

Linked in has more than 187 million users. Major competitors like Viadeo and Xing are further behind with 35 million and 10 million, respectively.[4][5][6] At the current membership growth rate, LinkedIn gains about 2 new users every second.[7] About half of all current LinkedIn users reside in the United States, although with 3 million new users, India has the fastest growing LinkedIn network in the world.[8]

Mobile

In 2012, LinkedIn unveiled a new mobile application for the iPhone, Android, and iPad devices. With this application, users can accept invitations, view who has viewed their profile, and share various items. In addition, members can see connections as to what different companies follow, and can also find job listings. In January 2011, LinkedIn acquired CardMunch, a mobile app maker that scans business cards and converts into contacts. LinkedIn plans to integrate this functionality into their services in the near future.[50] In August 2011, LinkedIn revamped its mobile applications on the iPhone, Android and HTML5. Mobile page views of the application have increased roughly 400% year over year according to CEO Jeff Weiner. [9]

Premium Subscription

In addition to the standard membership, LinkedIn has many paid options for recruiters and general employees, payable monthly or annually.[10]
These options include a number of "InMails", another form of direct messaging that guarantees a response or you get the credit back, more search results, and many more options depending on the account. Premium member also have more advanced search capabilities, thus being able to get more search results efficiently than free users. It also allows users to become OpenLink members, which allows for anyone, even people outside of his/her network to send messages free of charge.

Advertising

LinkedIn allows account holders to advertise on the social networking website. LinkedIn's advertising service gives users the opportunity to advertise to a specific target audience by specifying job title, job function, industry, geography, age, gender, company name, company size, or LinkedIn Group. Users must choose their budget for the ad campaign, as well as the bid price of how much they are willing to pay for each click or impression of the ad. Users can choose if they want to pay per click on the ad (CPC) or per 1,000 impressions of the ad (CPM). Once the user has created the ad, it must be approved to ensure that it follows LinkedIn's specific guidelines, mainly checking to see that the ad is consistent with LinkedIn's professional tone.[11] An ad may be shown on any or all of the specific webpages, including the user's profile page, home page, inbox, search results page, and groups page. Additionally, once an ad campaign has been created, account holders are able to track the progress of the ad on various graphs provided by LinkedIn.[12]

Ethical Implications

Security Breach

In June 2012, LinkedIn was a victim to a security breach that had caused millions of user passwords to emerge. A document containing 6.5 million hashed passwords appeared on a Russian online forum, with more than 200,000 decoded. From the document, security advisors around the world found that LinkedIn hashed their user passwords using the SHA-1 algorithm, a very simple algorithm that scrambles a password into a unique set of numbers and letters. [13] The SHA-1 algorithm is a very widely known password algorithm, with free online services to convert passwords and back through the algorithm. LinkedIn invalidated the stolen passwords, but it was not known if other credentials were stolen as well, and people who had their passwords stolen faced more risks as they may have used the same password for multiple online accounts. LinkedIn faced criticism as many security experts stated that the company's security systems were not sophisticated enough for modern day standards.[14]

Falsified Credentials

Since LinkedIn is a public, social media space, anyone can post or upload their resume materials. However, the easy access to this online space also allows people to falsify parts of their resume, such as as creating fake online alma maters, reporting graduation from faulty alma maters, and creating fake transcripts and recommendations from past employers. The community forum or network of LinkedIn affords employers the chance to eventually root out these falsified documents, but this process can be tricky. The advanced technology of computers makes it easy for people to create professional-looking documents and upload them on the Internet, making falsified credentials a vast potential problem.

Change of Terms of Service

In August of 2011, LinkedIn changed its terms of service without notifying its users. LinkedIn had changed the privacy settings of the users without notifying them, causing an uproar. LinkedIn had started to use the photos, names, and information of friends to create customized advertising for users. A setting to "opt-out" was created, however a notification was only placed on the blog which does not draw much traffic. [15]

However, within a few days after much criticism, LinkedIn no longer used names and photos of users in advertising campaigns. [16]

Recommendation System

While recommender systems may often be useful for users overwhelmed with limitless amounts of data, ethical issues may arise. As with other sites that make use of recommendation systems, such as Amazon.com, Facebook, and YouTube, there is always a chance recommendations are not useful or appropriate for the user. LinkedIn system uses an algorithm to suggest professionals you may know, companies you may want to follow, and develops a tailored news feed based on information on your profile and your connections' profiles. The issue stands in relation to user privacy and the amount of information extracted (often unknowingly) to make recommendations. [17]

See Also

References

  1. Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites | December 2012
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 LinkedIn's History, Present and Recent Features
  3. Linkedin: Press Center
  4. http://mashable.com/2012/11/01/linkedin-has-187-million-users/
  5. http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/11/linkedin-competitor-viadeo-hits-30-million-members/
  6. http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/27/xing-10-million/
  7. http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/04/linkedin-now-adding-two-new-members-every-second/
  8. http://blog.linkedin.com/2009/10/14/linkedin-50-million-professionals-worldwide/
  9. Mashable: LinkedIn Revamps Apps for Smartphones, iPads as Mobile Users Grow
  10. LinkedIn: Subscription Plans
  11. LinkedIn: LinkedIn Ads GuidelinesLinkedIn Retrieved 2012-12-10
  12. LinkedIn: AdsLinkedIn Retrieved 2012-12-10
  13. http://www.pcworld.com/article/257045/6_5m_linkedin_passwords_posted_online_after_apparent_hack.html
  14. LinkedIn breach puts site's reputation on the lineReuters Retrieved 2012-12-10
  15. LinkedOut: Another Social Network Opt-Out Draws Fire Wall Street Journal Retrieved 2012-12-10
  16. LinkedIn & Co: Social Media’s Furtive Little Tricks Reputation-communications.com Retrieved 2012-12-10
  17. Linkedin Recommendation System Quora Retrieved 2012-12-10

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