
Vision
› Positions itself as a full service
professional “productivity
tool” (not just personal
networking or jobsite)
› It can be argued that Social
Networking will naturally
segment along the same
lines as traditional media with
solid defensible niche for
business oriented service
› Building high switching costs
Full Service
Professional
productivity Tool
Growth of Social
Networking
Build Switching
Costs

Value Proposition
› Strives to draw professional
users by improving its
offerings and differentiating
itself from Social networking
Sites(SNSes) that promote
personal and recreational
Social Networking.
Differentiate
Drive users to visit for
multiple reasons
› Driving users to visit LinkedIn
for multiple reasons.
› Reaching other networks
while preserving privacy.
Connectivity without
compromising
privacy

Value Proposition
› Rolled out a new home page comprising
LinkedIn News
• News feed based
on fellow
members viewing
behavior
• News feed on
industry, products
or interests
Customizable
Modules
• Users could tailor
their personal
homepage.
• Example,
“Answers”,
“People”, “Jobs”
Status
• Effective way to
engage and tap
into knowledge
of the system.
• Advice, hire etc.

Business Model: five sources of revenue
Advertising
Corporate
Solutions
Primary
Research
Subscription
Job postings

Platform Management
› Functions as a technology platform on which
users can build applications for value
additions.
› Allowed Google’s OpenSocial platform to
create conference calendar.
› Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn has stricter
controls and quality standards.
› LinkedIn philosophy “ We won’t allow viral
spreading of unprofessional applications”.

International Expansion
› Languages other than English planned:
French, Japanese, Spanish.
› Chinese: Be more specific
› Japanese culture looks down upon disloyalty
to current employer.
› In China it is spend months to het
recommendations and personal referrals, so
current model many not work.

Competition
Facebook
MySpace
Orkut
Xing
Social Network
Services
Professional
network Services
Monster
Specialized:
The Ladders

Strategic Dilemma 1
Closed Environment

Open
Strategic Dilemma 2
Exclusively Professional
Go Social
Network Effects in Social Networks
 Evaluation of LinkedIn’s Strategy
 Evaluating the Dilemmas

LinkedIn in links Users, Application
Developers, recruiters, Advertisers, and
Experts.
 Company should explore where the
network effects are strongest and what are
the potential negative network effects.

› Positive effect: Positive sum game between
entities
› Negative effect: Zero sum game between
entities.
APPLICATION
DEVELOPERS
RECRUITERS
USERS
EXPERTS
ADVERTIZERS

Two conflicting Arguments
Market Will Tip
Market won’t tip
Global markets
Geographically Segmented
Switching Costs to move networks
Low switching costs, easy to multihome
Platform: Applications will emerge
OpenSocial (Google) Levels the
playing field
Professions are a distinct segment
Social Networks will engulf PNS
Quality of users attract other quality
users
Vertical and horizontal
segmentations
Marketing:
Viral Customer
Acquisitions
Creating
Platforms for
Applications
Great
Propositions
for Job
Seekers: Don’t
have to alert
your
employers
Business
Model: Robust
with Multiple
Revenue
Streams
Pricing: For
non-premium
users. Attracts
a large no. of
users
Focus: High
Quality
Professions
(Great
Audience)
Face book
may create a
separate PNS
Page
Network gets
diluted with
growth
No Deep and
established
switching costs
Will the
model really
work across
several
cultures
Substitute
technologies:
True cloud
computing where
all profiles are
available on the
Net
Open Social
(Google) may
commodizes
the PNS space

Advantages of Dismantling the Walled
Garden
Developing Loyalty through
Openness
Getting Ahead
of the curve
Benefitting from
Interoperability with other
online communities

Disadvantages Opening the Platforms to
users
Undermining Some of LinkedIn
Specific network effects
Losing the ability to control user
experience; loss of quality control
Could LinkedIn monetize the users
as effectively, if it was truly open.

Advantages of adding social networking
services
› Leveraging a platform that is already in
place.
› Increasing “stickiness’ of services and
increasing the frequency of visits. Where do
you visit more? LinkedIn or Facebook.

Disadvantages of adding social
networking services
› Diluting the LinkedIn brand and its
differentiation from big SNSes
› Failing in efforts to compete with big SNSes