Become a Local Blogging Celebrity with LinkedIn

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Linkedin Local There are a number of social media sites that have captured the hearts and attention span of the modern world. Internet users rely on social networking a great deal for any number of tasks, originally personal but not more along the lines of professional. In fact, using such sites for self promotion, business networking and marketing is becoming second nature to the site genre.

Some sites have been created specifically for this purpose, and one of the most well known is LinkedIn. Well established, full of people in every industry and very beneficial, you probably already have an account or have thought about getting one. It is recommended, as a quick means of making connections with others in relevant industries, or just maintaining and easily accessible online resume.

But beyond that, LinkedIn can provide a fantastic method of local marketing. This is a means of targeting a local audience to become a kind of celebrity of sorts to those in your immediate area. This is much more simple to achieve than gaining a mass notoriety within your industry. [Read more…]

LinkedIn To Spend Big On Security Following Breach

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LinkedIn6.5 million users watched as their personal LinkedIn account information was hacked in June 2012 and now the company has promised to counter future network breaches by spending big network security.

LinkedIn reported another strong and profitable Q2 2012 and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner told investors this week at the company’s earnings call that the cost of security would effect the bottom line by upwards of $2 million to $3 million.

According to Weiner:

“In June, we reported the theft of six-and-a-half million LinkedIn member passwords that were published on an unauthorized website. Though no member login information was published, we disabled the passwords of the accounts that we deemed to be at risk. Since then, we have redoubled our efforts to ensure the safety of member accounts on LinkedIn by further improving password-strengthening measures and enhancing the security of our infrastructure and data. The health of our network, as measured by member growth and engagement, is as strong as it was prior to the incident.”

Weiner’s sentiments were echoed by LInkedIn SVP and CFO Steve Sordello who told investors the company has already spent upwards of $1 million handling the breach. [Read more…]

LinkedIn Remains Profitable In Another Quarter

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LinkedIn Revenues and Profits Increase AgainThere was a lot of doubt from analysts and users when LinkedIn decided to launch its initial public offering (IPO) however the company has since proven its business model and in Q2 2012 the company once again reported a profit.

In a letter to investors Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn noted:

“LinkedIn had a strong second quarter with all of our key operating and financial metrics showing solid performance. Our ongoing investment in product innovation drove healthy engagement as measured by unique visiting members and member page views, and our three revenue streams all experienced significant growth.”

Those unique visitors now number 175 million members while the business reported a 107% increase in revenue from its hiring solutions platform, up to $121.6 million for 53% of the social networks total revenue. In the same period of 2011 hiring solutions accounted for 48% of the networks revenue.

In a statement to investors linked in posted the following financial information: [Read more…]

Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against LinkedIn

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LinkedIn SuedSince going public LinkedIn has managed to record record profits, grow quarterly and attract millions of new users. Unfortunately the company has also failed to live up to security measures which has led to a $5 million class action lawsuit.

Last month 6 million user passwords were leaked to a Russian website and the company has been hit with several phishing scams.

The full lawsuit was uploaded to Scribd by the user jeff_roberts881 and was filed by Katie Szpyrka “on behalf of all others similarly situated” against the “LinkedIn Corporation.”

The lawsuit specifically addresses LinkedIn’s inability to protect email addresses, passwords and login credentials. The lawsuit claims that the lack of security is in direction violation of LinkedIn’s own “User Agreement and Privacy Policy.” [Read more…]

LinkedIn Disables Hacked Passwords

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LinkedIn Hack

LinkedIn has announced plans to disable user accounts that are still using hacked passwords. The company says it will suspend the accounts of 6.5 million users and then send those users the information necessary to reset their account.

In a blog post LInkedIn director Vicente Silveira wrote:

“Our first priority was to lock down and protect the accounts associated with the decoded passwords that we believed were at the greatest risk. We’ve invalidated those passwords and contacted those members with a message that lets them know how to reset their passwords.”

Silveira continued:

“Going forward, as a precautionary measure, we are disabling the passwords of any other members that we believe could potentially be affected. Those members are also being contacted by LinkedIn with instructions on how to reset their passwords.” [Read more…]

Social Networks Broken Down By Demographic [Infographic]

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To better portray how certain demographics use social networking and to show the pull those social networks have over users the team at Go-Gulf.com created a social network infographic.

Some statistics we already knew, for example Facebook rules the pack with 901+ million users. Other facts though are interesting, for example learning that Pinterest is still dominated by 68.2 % women.

Interestingly enough Pinterest users spend the same 405 minutes per month browsing the sites various pins when compared to 405 minutes that users spend on various parts of the Facebook website. [Read more…]

LinkedIn Releases Q1 2012 Earnings Report, Has Best Quarter Ever

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Sales at the network for the quarter reached $188.5 million, $10 million more than the $178.4 million expected by analysts. The company also reported a net income increase of $5 million which is up from $2.08 million one year prior. Analysts expected 0 cents per share but were instead met with 4 cents a share.

The company also announced an increased user base which jumped to 161 million users from 150 million in the previous quarter.  [Read more…]

LinkedIn Is Huge…In India

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LinkedIn Huge In IndiaLinkedIn isn’t just a big publicly traded social network in the United States, it’s one of the fastest growing internet company’s in India, growing by more than 300% in the last three years.

According to recent numbers from company CEO Jeff Weiner, 14 million people in India use LinkedIn with the company excited to target the more than 300 million young people who live in the country in the coming months and years ahead.

Speaking at LinkedIn’s B2B conference in Mumbai Weiner told the audience that he wants big firms in India to adapt to LinkedIn’s platform in order to find new workers in a country where the tech boom has benefited many of the countries tech savvy workers, especially the regions younger generations. [Read more…]

LinkedIn iPad App Brings Full Force Of Business Network To The Masses

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LinkedIn iPad App UpdatesSocial network LinkedIn on Friday rolled out a new iPad app which provides LinkedIn users with the ability to take advantage of the new iPad’s “retina display” while accessing most major functions found on the company’s website.

Currently serving more than 150 million users per month users formerly had to download the iPhone version of the program to gain mobile access, an option that was not optimized for iPad use.

Once installed users will notice the “in” button in the top left corner which will guide them through a simple and effective tutorial which explains the new iPad based application, allows users to filter through updates and much more.

The biggest upgrade to the company’s mobile strategy is likely the addition of more activity in the users home stream. The new app includes LinkedIn news, Dow Jones monitory, a calendar box that pulls from your Apple calendar and more. [Read more…]