LinkedIn networking site joins $1bn club

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/446fef0a-3ca0-11dd-b958-0000779fd2ac.html

LinkedIn networking site joins $1bn club
By Richard Waters in San Francisco
Published: June 18 2008 01:52 Last updated: June 18 2008 01:52

The biggest online social network intended for professional use has been valued at more than $1bn, putting it among a small group of private internet companies to have crossed that threshold before going public.
LinkedIn, whose members use the site to do things such as making professional contacts, recruiting staff or finding new jobs, said it had raised $53m from a group of venture capitalists led by Bain Capital, taking the total raised to $80m in all.

The latest investment, for about 5 per cent of the company, gives LinkedIn a “pre-money” valuation of $1.015bn, said Dan Nye, chief executive.

Though it pales beside the $15bn valuation for Facebook implied by a Microsoft investment of $240m last year, the latest stake in LinkedIn is still one of the most eye-catching investments in the fast-growing social networking business.

News Corp paid $580m for the parent company of MySpace, then with 17m members in the US, just as the social networking boom was taking off three years ago. This year, AOL paid $850m for Bebo, which claims more than 40m members.

Asked if he had held talks about selling out to a bigger media company, Mr Nye said LinkedIn “had discussions with the cast of characters” but decided to go it alone because of the company’s significant growth potential.

Launched in 2003 by Reid Hoffman, a veteran of online payment company PayPal, the network has 23m members, with more than 1m new ones joining each month. Though it has its headquarters in Silicon Valley, it also claims to operate the largest online professional network in Europe.

The company’s record in finding ways to make money sets it apart from other social networks that have struggled to meet high expectations for advertising revenue, said Jeff Glass, a partner of Bain Capital.

Besides carrying job advertising, LinkedIn charges members a subscription for “premium” services that let them do things like make professional introductions through the network.
It also has a “software as a service” business, charging a subscription to corporate recruiters to help them manage their hiring on the site.

It will generate revenues of $75m-$100m this year, more than double 2007, Mr Nye predicted.
The company has been profitable since 2006 and raised its latest round of capital to strengthen its balance sheet rather than to fund operations, he added.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

FT: Facebook heads MySpace in unique visitors

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/302914bc-40a7-11dd-bd48-0000779fd2ac.html

Facebook heads MySpace in unique visitors
By Kevin Allison in San Francisco
Published: June 22 2008 23:32 Last updated: June 22 2008 23:32

Facebook, the fast-growing social network, has taken a significant lead over MySpace in visitor numbers for the first time, according to one popular measure of internet traffic.
Facebook attracted more than 123m unique visitors in May, an increase of 162 per cent over the same period last year according to ComScore, a company that monitors websites. That compared with 114.6m unique visitors at MySpace, Facebook’s leading rival, whose traffic grew just 5 per cent during the same period, ComScore said.

The findings mark the first time that Facebook, launched in 2004, has taken a significant lead in unique visitors, after ComScore’s April traffic figures showed the rivals in a virtual tie. They come at a time of change inside Facebook, as the one-time upstart attempts to transform itself into a leading media company. Several members of the original executive team have left the company in recent weeks.

The departures include Adam D’Angelo, chief technology officer and personal confidant of Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s 23-year-old founder and chief executive; and Matt Cohler, Facebook’s first official hire, who was in charge of product development.
Mr Zuckerberg has appointed Sheryl Sandberg as his second-in-command. Ms Sandberg, who helped develop Google’s lucrative advertising business, is expected to play a crucial role in the development of Facebook’s revenue model.

The management changes come as the company is under pressure to justify the $15bn valuation it drew last year in an investment round with Microsoft.
Facebook is a private company and does not disclose official sales or profit figures. But people close to the company have claimed that it made $150m in sales last year. That figure is expected to grow to $300m-$350m this year as it attempts to broaden its revenue stream.
Counting unique visitors is just one way to measure the website popularity. Many sites, including Facebook, measure audience engagement by tracking the number of repeat, or “active” users of their sites, leaving out those who visit a site once and never return. MySpace claims to have about 110m active users, Facebook about 80m.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Yahoo! News: McCain says using Google to vet VP candidates

McCain says using Google to vet VP candidates

Mon Jun 9, 4:56 PM ET
It turns out choosing a vice president isn't that complicated after all.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain joked on Monday that Google, the popular Internet search engine, had made investigating his list of potential candidates a little bit easier.

"You know, basically it's a Google," he said to laughter at a fund-raising luncheon when asked how the selection process was going. "What you can find out now on the Internet -- it's remarkable."

Vice presidential candidates go through rigorous screening to determine whether they would help a White House aspirant in a general election -- and to make sure there is nothing in their background that could be damaging down the road.

McCain, 71, has faced high scrutiny in his search because of his age.

The Arizona senator, who wrapped up his place on the top of the Republican ticket earlier this year, said he still had some time to complete the search for a number two.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, editing by Alan Elsner)

Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

TimeOnline: First preview of Google's Android phone

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4032446.ece


From Times Online
May 30, 2008
First preview of Google's Android phone

The device allows owners to unlock it by drawing on the screen, and includes a built-in compass to help with navigation

Jonathan Richards



Click here for a slideshow of Android prototypes and other phones

Owners of the new Google-powered mobile phone will be able to unlock the handset by drawing a secret shape on the screen.

The new 'signature unlocking' tool was among the features revealed during a sneak preview in California yesterday.

Other highlights include a built-in compass that will allow people to orientate maps as they use their phone to scout out a restaurant or venue, and a customisable homepage that lets people bookmark their favourite web pages.

The device - which is unlocked by drawing a shape only the owner knows on a nine-square grid - will also include a magnifying tool, to make zooming in on web content easier on a small screen, and a mobile version of the game Pac Man.

Demonstrating the device at a developers' conference in San Francisco, Andy Rubin, who heads up the project at Google, declined to give a release date, but said that the first phones powered by Google's Android operating system will appear in the second half of the year.
Google will not make the phone, but has helped develop the software that handset manufacturers will install in their devices. Samsung, HTC, LG Electronics, and Motorola are among the companies that have said they will produce phones that run on Android.

The device on which Mr Rubin gave the demonstration (a video is here) had a touch-sensitive screen, but the software will work equally well on other devices, he said, including those with a so-called 'tracking ball', which has been used by BlackBerry.

Observers of the demonstration said the software bore a resemblance to that used on Apple's iPhone, which is also a touchscreen device, and which allows owners to place icons linking to sites such as YouTube on the homepage.

Google demonstrated the device to about 3,000 software developers at an annual conference, and said that it hoped developers would create all kinds of applications that owners of Android phones will be able to download from the internet and install on their devices.

Android is what is known as an 'open-source' operating system, meaning that developers can access the code and create software that works with the device. Apple has announced a similar inititiave which allows developers to create software for the iPhone.

Google, which handles about 80 per cent of search queries in the UK, also hopes that by helping to produce a phone that will make it easier to use the web, it will tap a new source of revenue - namely advertisements that appear on web pages viewed on mobile phones.

The search company reported revenues of just over $5 billion in the last quarter, but the vast majority came from adverts viewed on personal computers. In Western Europe, the spend on mobile advertising is expected to rise from $1 billion in 2008 to $1.5 billion this year.

In a bid to take on Google in mobile, Microsoft announced last week that users of its e-mail and messaging tools on mobile phones would for the first time see ads on such services.

According to a M:Metrics, a company which tracks use of the mobile internet, 62 per cent of search queries by UK mobiles are performed by Google, compared with 7 per cent by MIcrosoft.