The Social

Corporate tools take note: You can tell Twitter exactly what you're doing, and it'll tell LinkedIn too.

Chalk one up for the cringe-worthy marketing term "personal branding": there is a new partnership between Twitter, hub for informing the world exactly what you're doing and thinking at all moments of the day, and LinkedIn, the business-networking tool on steroids. In an announcement Monday, the two companies explained that LinkedIn status messages can sync with Twitter.

"The business use case of Twitter is turning out to be very important, and more and more people are finding that the persona they create for themselves on the Web is part of their resume in many ways," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in a joint video with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman that was posted to the LinkedIn blog.

So, in short, LinkedIn's "status" feature now syncs with Twitter with an optional check box--a feature that the two companies say should be rolling out over the next few days. Likewise, can set your Twitter status as your LinkedIn status by using the hash tag #li or #in, so that you can rest assured that your tweet about "watching Gossip Girl and eating cold pizza" won't immediately show up to potential clients or employers trawling your LinkedIn profile. (Full disclosure: This was my Twitter status tonight. If you believe that it renders me professionally unsound, please feel free to let me know.)

All snark aside, this is probably a very good bet for LinkedIn, which continues to grow fast and make money but which hasn't yet really jumped into the latest social-networking trend of real-time, streaming information. Inking a partnership with Twitter is much easier than launching some other kind of initiative to get members to update their statuses more often. Tweets sent to LinkedIn, presumably, could also be grouped in with LinkedIn status messages to form some kind of business-intelligence live stream. The sort of information that people want to share specifically with colleagues and professional associates could be of interest to high-end advertisers or the market research community.

Twitter, meanwhile, is going to want to stay in the limelight of the business community as it considers a long-term business model--one of the microblogging service's potential moneymakers has been launching a "dashboard" of analytics for people and companies who use it primarily for professional purposes rather than, you know, filling the world in on which beer was just discovered in the back of the fridge.

Also for Twitter, this is yet another potential source of tweets as it attempts to become the world's foremost repository of real-time information. Earlier this year, MySpace announced an official way to sync Twitter and MySpace status, and in a matter of weeks its link-shortening service had become the second most popular on Twitter (trailing Twitter's preferred Bit.ly).

Facebook, meanwhile, appears to have been more reluctant: a Twitter app on its platform has pulled tweets into status messages for some time, and an unofficial app lets members tag selective tweets with the hashtag "#fb" to cross-post them to Facebook, but the only time that Facebook has put out a big, official announcement about syncing with Twitter was when it added an easy-sync feature for "fan pages," profiles for brands and marketers.

Not surprising. Twitter is a hot name in marketing these days, and in order for Facebook to establish fan pages as an ideal spot for brands to build a presence, an easy Twitter sync is a selling point. But in the long run, it's an advantage for Facebook, which once tried to buy Twitter and was snubbed, to keep its treasure trove of what-the-world-is-thinking somewhat to itself. After all, it can get away with it: with well over 300 million active users, Facebook is significantly bigger than Twitter, and could be diluting its own product by openly sourcing status messages out to Twitter. LinkedIn, better known for its networking features than any kind of status updating, isn't running that kind of risk.

Until then: "At SFO airport at bookstore. Deciding between @gladwell and @tferriss. Need real, serious insights. Thoughts? #li."

Not a particularly surprising move: LinkedIn president Jeff Weiner has taken over as CEO of the company, according to an announcement Wednesday from the business networking site.

Weiner, a former executive vice president at Yahoo, joined the company in January after then-CEO Dan Nye stepped down in December and founder Reid Hoffman took over as interim CEO. Hoffman will remain executive chairman of the company.

"LinkedIn was founded to harness the power of the Internet to create a tool that would help individuals become more effective and successful professionals," Hoffman said in a release. "Over the past six months, Jeff has done an exceptional job leading the company and I look forward to continuing the work that we have begun together."

LinkedIn now has over 42 million members, the company said, and hopes to be profitable this year for the second year in a row; it makes money not only from ads, but from premium subscriptions and "corporate solutions."

The company was aiming for a billion-dollar valuation just around a year ago when it raised a $53 million Series D funding round. Hoffman has gone on the record saying that he hopes LinkedIn will eventually go public.

Business networking site LinkedIn has confirmed reports that its founder, Reid Hoffman, will return to the CEO post to replace resigning CEO Dan Nye.

Hoffman had stepped down as CEO in 2006 but remained chairman of the board and stayed active in product development operations. This month, LinkedIn hired Dipchand Nishar as vice president of products, with the objective of taking over some of the duties that Hoffman had been handling. Meanwhile, former Yahoo executive Jeff Wiener, currently the executive in residence at Accel Partners and Greylock Partners, will take over as interim president at LinkedIn.

Nye plans to step down in mid-January. No reason was provided for his departure.

"Dan joined LinkedIn with a mission to help us build a company that was strong and sustainable. In two years, he has succeeded in this objective, transforming LinkedIn from a young start up to a high growth business," Hoffman said in a release. LinkedIn does not make its financials completely public, but says it has been profitable since 2007.

"Dan deserves tremendous credit for his contributions to LinkedIn. His passion and commitment will continue in the efforts of the team that he's helped build here."

Currently, LinkedIn has about 33 million members and has raised more than $100 million in venture capital, giving it a valuation that's reportedly right around $1 billion.

There's nary a sheep to be tossed on business network LinkedIn's new developer platform, which has officially gone live.

The array of internal- and partner-created applications includes a "reading list" app from Amazon, a trip-tracking app from TripIt, file sharing from Box.net, and presentation apps from SlideShare and Google Presentation.

"One of the big differences between LinkedIn and some of the other platforms is that we're being very selective about the apps that are integrated onto our platform," LinkedIn vice president of platform Jamie Templeton told CNET News. Developers and companies must go through an assessment process before their apps are approved. For obvious reasons, they have to fit into LinkedIn's buttoned-up mold, which means that a "Drunk Office Christmas Party Photo Slideshow" app probably doesn't have enough of a "professional" spin.

Something else you won't find on LinkedIn's app platform? Those ad networks that are all over the likes of Facebook and MySpace's platforms. For external advertisements, the apps must work with LinkedIn. But they'll also have the option to make money through retail (like Amazon's app) and subscriptions--while apps are free by default, they can have premium subscriptions, as Box.net's and collaborator Huddle.net's applications do.

Right now, LinkedIn members can add a maximum of 15 applications to their profiles, but Templeton said that the addition of "secondary pages" for more apps will come soon.

A look at TripIt on a LinkedIn profile.

(Credit: LinkedIn)

LinkedIn has long insisted that it's exempt from the common wisdom that social-network ads will never make much money: its affluent user base of networking-happy business professionals can rake in more high-end advertisers and charge more for impressions.

To that end, the company announced on Monday the debut of an ad network, the "LinkedIn Audience Network," that enables other sites to run LinkedIn's ads.

TechCrunch wrote that this will be in partnership with a third-party company, Collective Media, which powers advertising networks for clients.

Like most social-network advertising plans, the LinkedIn Audience Network focuses on targeting. But in LinkedIn's case, targeting doesn't mean pinpointing favorite movies or TV shows, but rather job title or market niche. It's already been serving targeted ads on its site and says demand is so high that the company will start serving those ads on third-party sites.

"Whenever someone visits LinkedIn, a cookie will be placed on their browser, which will identify them as a LinkedIn member when they visit a partner site," TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld explained in a post describing LinkedIn's strategy. "Personally identifying information will be removed, but members will be grouped into different, targetable categories. As with similar ad-network targeting by Yahoo and Google, anyone will be able to opt out of this program."

LinkedIn groups its members (the current count is about 27 million) into targeting categories called "InCrowds," with profiles like "corporate executive" and "IT professional." Advertisers on the LinkedIn Audience Network have the option of targeting any one of these, or to create their own.

"The message we hear from advertisers is simple: they want mass reach against specific segments of decision-making professionals, and they want their ads to appear in quality environments," LinkedIn director of ad sales Steve Patrizi said in a release Monday. "The LinkedIn Audience Network offers advertisers one of the most accurate audience data sets available on the Web, along with the confidence of knowing that their brands will only appear on sites with high editorial standards."

Here's what I want to know: does LinkedIn have an "InCrowd" called "politician," and does it display ads for escort services?

On Monday we heard that Facebook was allowing current employees to sell a delineated portion of their common stock, something that the company confirmed on Tuesday.

Now, VentureBeat's Eric Eldon, who also originally reported the Facebook tidbit, says that LinkedIn employees are going to have the option of doing the same. The business social network, Eldon wrote, is allowing current employees to sell 20 percent of their equity in the company at a $500 million valuation. That's quite a bit lower than the billion-dollar valuation reportedly bestowed upon the company after its recent $53 million Series D funding round.

LinkedIn declined comment on the report.

For both companies, it's probably a response to the fact that these Silicon Valley high-flyers are still independently run, with neither willing to cave to a buyout but with the likelihood of an IPO still less than concrete. According to VentureBeat, banks aren't willing to take the companies public unless they pull in higher profits.

Facebook more or less acknowledged in its confirmation statement Tuesday that the plan is a way for employees to "sit tight" while the company works on the "growth over profits" mantra that COO Sheryl Sandberg encapsulated in a talk at the F8 Conference last month. "To provide employees with a financial cushion while we continue to build the company, Facebook has designed a one-time program to enable employees to realize some liquidity," the statement read.

Business-networking site LinkedIn announced on Tuesday evening that it had netted $53 million in a Series D funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures and with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and Bessemer Ventures. CEO Dan Nye wrote in a blog post that this values the company at a smidgen more than $1 billion.

Rumors floated this spring that the company was aiming for a billion-dollar valuation on a new funding round, rather than seeking a buyer. Previously, the company had raised $27 million. Chairman and co-founder Reid Hoffman has said that it'll likely go public unless an ideal buyer pops up.

Why so much money? Well, LinkedIn is more profitable than most of the social-networking fray. The site currently has 23 million members, small compared with Facebook or MySpace. But its white-collar focus--billionaire Bill Gates is proud of his profile--means that the people using the site likely aren't going to be college students scrounging for pizza money. That lets LinkedIn rake in premium advertisers and charge quite a bit for them--reportedly $75 per thousand impressions.

And it's growing fast, according to Web metrics firms. LinkedIn has also continued to launch new features in the past year, like customized news and developer platform widgets.

On Monday, reports surfaced that business social network LinkedIn is likely looking to raise a round of venture capital (rather than find a corporate parent).

TechCrunch reports that investment bank Allen & Co. is hoping to help LinkedIn pull in that funding at a $1 billion valuation.

Spearheading the campaign is Dave Wehner, managing director of the Bay Area bank, who was reportedly a big part of Bebo's $850 million sale to AOL.

Why $1 billion? Well, LinkedIn says its target demographic has meant that it can pull in some pretty lucrative ad revenue, avoiding the "ad trap" that has hurt monetization efforts on the part of more general-focus social networks. The average user of LinkedIn (there are 20 million total) is reportedly 41 years old and makes about $110,000 annually.

That's made it possible for the social network to charge advertisers $75 per thousand impressions, which is almost unheard of in the social-media world.

Whether that's worth a full billion dollars, well, we'll have to find out.

Oh, Valley gossip: VentureBeat speculates we might soon hear about some big company buying business social network LinkedIn. The evidence? A board meeting that "went way over the scheduled time," and sources who say "good news" is on the way. Even VentureBeat admits it's a stretch, but asserts that "something's up."

LinkedIn isn't commenting. VentureBeat later added a note suggesting that the "good news" might be additional funding, not an acquisition.

Along with Digg and Plaxo, LinkedIn is one of those social-media companies that people just like to talk about--particularly when it comes to buyers. All three companies are independent, potentially appealing to both technology and media companies, and are currently too small for IPOs but big and influential enough so that an acquisition would be a huge deal for the industry.

In Monday's VentureBeat report, the only clue we have toward a prospective buyer is that it probably isn't News Corp., which was reportedly interested until it opted for a major media acquisition, Newsday, instead. (VentureBeat explains, "Its stockholders would likely look down on yet another purchase.") LinkedIn co-founder and board chairman Reid Hoffman, meanwhile, has said that the company will likely pursue an IPO before 2010 unless the right "suitor" makes a deal he can't refuse.