Company Overview
The LinkedIn Corporation was started in 2002 in the living room of founder Reid Hoffman. Today, under CEO Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn is the world’s largest online, professional network with over 350 million members in over 200 countries and territories (Papacharissi, 2009). LinkedIn’s mission is to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful” (About Us, 2015). In order to achieve this, LinkedIn provides products that allow its users to create and share their professional profiles online, engage with their professional networks, access relevant knowledge and business insights, and find business opportunities.
LinkedIn provides products to cater to individuals, enterprises, and professional organizations. …show more content…
As the technology industry has shown extreme growth, LinkedIn’s revenue has grown from $94 million to $643 million between the beginning of 2011 and the end of 2014 (D’Onfro, 2015). Although LinkedIn has a large user base, it holds a relatively small market share of 28%, while Facebook has 71% and Twitter has 23%. It is important to note that there is overlap between these forms of social media, as many people have accounts for more than one site (Paulette, 2015). LinkedIn has consistently beat analyst predictions of growth measured by EPS up until April, 2015. This constant outperformance has provided steady confidence in the company by investors, but its unanticipatedly slowed growth has shaken this confidence and resulted in an almost immediate 25% drop in stock …show more content…
One such company is Monster Worldwide, a site entirely dedicated to providing its users links to a variety of employers to assist in their job hunt. Monster has millions of unique visitors each month searching in its immense database, a function that is similar to LinkedIn. It differs from Monster because LinkedIn is based around building a network of professional connections to assist in a job hunt, whereas Monster provides direct links to job openings. Another company similar to LinkedIn is the French company Viadeo. It operates primarily in France, with some of its revenue also coming from China. It is conceptually the most similar to LinkedIn because it focuses on building professional networks among its members and connects users to different career opportunities. So far Viadeo’s size is a fraction of LinkedIn’s, but it is a formidable competitor for the niche professional market that LinkedIn is focusing on dominating. LinkedIn is a global company and therefore it competes directly with Viadeo in the European market. There are a few other smaller companies in the United States and around the world that have tried to establish themselves as a similar networking site, but many of them are not yet big enough to compete on a large scale with LinkedIn. The five companies chosen are the ones that most directly
The LinkedIn Corporation was started in 2002 in the living room of founder Reid Hoffman. Today, under CEO Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn is the world’s largest online, professional network with over 350 million members in over 200 countries and territories (Papacharissi, 2009). LinkedIn’s mission is to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful” (About Us, 2015). In order to achieve this, LinkedIn provides products that allow its users to create and share their professional profiles online, engage with their professional networks, access relevant knowledge and business insights, and find business opportunities.
LinkedIn provides products to cater to individuals, enterprises, and professional organizations. …show more content…
As the technology industry has shown extreme growth, LinkedIn’s revenue has grown from $94 million to $643 million between the beginning of 2011 and the end of 2014 (D’Onfro, 2015). Although LinkedIn has a large user base, it holds a relatively small market share of 28%, while Facebook has 71% and Twitter has 23%. It is important to note that there is overlap between these forms of social media, as many people have accounts for more than one site (Paulette, 2015). LinkedIn has consistently beat analyst predictions of growth measured by EPS up until April, 2015. This constant outperformance has provided steady confidence in the company by investors, but its unanticipatedly slowed growth has shaken this confidence and resulted in an almost immediate 25% drop in stock …show more content…
One such company is Monster Worldwide, a site entirely dedicated to providing its users links to a variety of employers to assist in their job hunt. Monster has millions of unique visitors each month searching in its immense database, a function that is similar to LinkedIn. It differs from Monster because LinkedIn is based around building a network of professional connections to assist in a job hunt, whereas Monster provides direct links to job openings. Another company similar to LinkedIn is the French company Viadeo. It operates primarily in France, with some of its revenue also coming from China. It is conceptually the most similar to LinkedIn because it focuses on building professional networks among its members and connects users to different career opportunities. So far Viadeo’s size is a fraction of LinkedIn’s, but it is a formidable competitor for the niche professional market that LinkedIn is focusing on dominating. LinkedIn is a global company and therefore it competes directly with Viadeo in the European market. There are a few other smaller companies in the United States and around the world that have tried to establish themselves as a similar networking site, but many of them are not yet big enough to compete on a large scale with LinkedIn. The five companies chosen are the ones that most directly