LinkedIn (LNKD)

Re: LinkedIn (LNKD)

Postby iam802 » Thu Jul 21, 2011 8:35 pm

JP Morgan downgrands LNKD

--
http://www.investmentweek.co.uk/investm ... s-linkedin
Analysts at JPMorgan Chase have downgraded LinkedIn from a'buy' to 'neutral' recommendation, amid concerns the stock is overheated.

The group is the first IPO underwriter to downgrade the stock three months after its listing.
In a note to clients seen by the Wall Street Journal, Doug Anmuth, an analyst at the group, said the stock has become fairly valued and has placed a $85 price target on the shares.

The stock has more than doubled since its $45 IPO price, priced at $98 at the end of trading yesterday.

"The stock has risen 44% in three weeks, compared with 3% for the S&P 500," he said.
"Our move to neutral here is based on valuation rather than fundamental concerns as we believe the risk/reward in the shares is now more balanced at current levels."






Note:
I think, closer to year end.. upgrades...and then follow by Facebook IPO
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Re: LinkedIn (LNKD)

Postby kennynah » Fri Jul 22, 2011 8:09 am

is LinkedIn any good? i dont use it... everytime i see this in my email inbox, i junk it..
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Re: LinkedIn (LNKD)

Postby iam802 » Fri Jul 22, 2011 10:23 am

it is a giant rolodex...good to keep up with what colleagues, industry folks are doing (moving to other companies etc)

apart from that, it is not Facebook..and it ain't Google.

maybe it's job search will be useful.
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Re: LinkedIn (LNKD)

Postby iam802 » Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:36 am

LNKD price has been holding well going into its first earning report yesterday. Price movement is mitigated by having a Vertical Spread establish back when it was in the $70s-80s.

Yesterday, I protected my gains by capping it with a short Vertical CALL spread; completing my IronCondor.

Moving forward: For the year, LinkedIn is unlikely to be profitable as it seeks expansion and will incur costs.


Nonetheless, here's the reports:

==
http://seekingalpha.com/article/284921- ... transcript

Good afternoon. Thank you and welcome to LinkedIn first earnings conference call. Joining me today to talk about our second quarter results are Jeff Weiner our CEO and Steve Sordello our CFO.

....


Jeff Weiner

Thank you, Shannon and welcome to today’s conference call. I will start by summarizing the operating results for the second quarter and since today’s earnings call is the first one we filed as a public company I thought it would be helpful to include a brief overview of LinkedIn. What we do? Why we do it? And how we measure ourselves? I’ll then recap some highlights from the quarter and briefly touch on focus areas for us in the second half of the year and finally I’ll turn it over to Steve Sordello, our CFO for a more detailed look at the numbers and outlook.

In short, we were very pleased with the company’s performance in the second quarter. We saw broad based and accelerating growth across nearly all of our key metrics including revenue which grew 120% year-over-year, to $121 million. This marks the fourth consecutive quarter in which our topline has at least doubled year-over-year. We also delivered $26.3 million of adjusted EBITDA which exceeded our expectations. That translates to non-GAAP EPS of $0.10.

Our strong top and bottom-line was due in large part to the growth we experienced across our key member engagement metrics as well as the strength of our higher margin online direct sales channel. At our core, LinkedIn is in the business of connecting tons of opportunities at national scale. This is not possible due to the convergent industry trends of scalable infrastructure that connects, hundreds and millions of people in seconds and unprecedented shifts in online behavior relating to identity, connections and the sharing of valuable information and knowledge.

Talent is the driving force for success and economic opportunities. That holds true for both individual professionals and the companies they work for and that’s why our mission remains connecting the work professionals to make them more productive and successful. This means not only helping people to find their dream jobs, but also enabling them to be greater to jobs they are already in and we are just getting started.

As of today, I’m pleased to announce that LinkedIn has north of 120 million members and we are now adding more than two members every second. This is the fastest rate of absolute member growth in the company’s history. By our measure there are more than 614 million professionals in the world and roughly 3.3 billion people in the global workforce ultimately, our vision is to create economic opportunity for every professional, which we believe is that the soundly worthy objective especially in light of current macroeconomic trend.

At LinkedIn, the most important core value we have is putting our members close. We are focused on creating simple products that our members can use to transform the trajectory of their careers. We measure our success primarily by three member-focused metrics, membership growth, unique visitors and page views and we saw significant growth in all three. During the second quarter, LinkedIn membership grew 61% year-over-year to more than 115 million members, representing an accelerating growth rate in the previous quarter.

We saw substantial increases in all major countries and especially in emerging markets such as Brazil, India and China. LinkedIn now has members in more than 200 countries and territories. We offer members the ability to create their profiles in 44 languages and with the most recent additions last quarter of Turkish, Russian and Romanian, the site is now available in nine different languages with more to come by the end of this year.

With regard to international expansion we opened a Northern European hub in Stockholm and an Asian regional headquarters in Singapore, bringing our total number of offices outside the US to 12. According to comScore in the second quarter, unique visitors to the LinkedIn network increased 83% year-over-year in average to the 81.8 million per month material acceleration over the first quarter growth rate of 65%.

Page views jumped to 80% to 7.1 billion during the course of the second quarter. Page view growth slightly trailed unique visitor growth due in large part to the fact that new users generally have a lower level of engagement when compared to more mature and the second quarter saw record levels of new members and unique visitors to the site. Adding more members, getting them to come back more offerings and giving them more reasons to engage on the site, drive network effects that form a virtue of cycle on LinkedIn.

As membership grows and activity on the platform increases, it improves the quantity and the quality of data propagated throughout the network which we then use to create better more relevant products and services for our members and customers. This meaningfully contributes to the growth of our three diverse revenue stream, hiring solutions, marketing solutions, and premium subscriptions. And during the quarter, all three performed above our expectations. We are excited about the trends we are seeing especially in light of the fact that LinkedIn is now growing off a much larger base.

Now I’d like to spend a few minutes focusing on some products and service highlights from the quarter. As I said, our most important core value is that members come first, we have all products across three dimensions to deliver value to our members, professional identity, which helps professionals connect, find and be found, insights which help people get the information and knowledge they need to be great at what they do and everywhere which ensures that our platform works wherever our members work, regardless of where they are on the web or walk.

With regard to professional identity in Q2, more than 14 million members joined LinkedIn to create their professional profiles of record and once they’ve built those profiles we are helping them build valuable professional networks. Improvements to the products like people you may know are in part responsible for the connection requests into the past year which are a key driver of connection density and the more connected a professional is on LinkedIn, the more quality content and thus value is created for the member and for our customers.

Expanding LinkedIn as a primary source for professional insights, Q2 saw significant increase of the availability and distribution of our flagship social news product LinkedIn Today, which was recently rolled out to the iPhone, Android and is now available on the flipboard app. Extending LinkedIn everywhere, we opened up the LinkedIn platform to developers in April with new APIs and plug-ins. Our goal is to help developers build the professional way and they are embracing the challenging. We now have more than 30,000 developers using our APIs and more than a 100,000 publishers now use LinkedIn share buttons to drive traffic to their sites and these buttons are seen hundreds and millions times every week and subsequent in this leading business publishers are reporting dramatic increases in LinkedIn-based referrals to their sites.

And I just want to take a minute to talk about a major new product we introduced last we apply with LinkedIn. Apply allows any company or organization to their people apply for jobs and get their foot in the door using their connections at the click of a button. It advances all three of our product priorities. It allows you to be found using your profile, it helps you get important new sites about potential employers, and the people best positioned to help you get the job and it represents the net – of our open platform efforts. Thousands of companies are already using apply including Netflix, and LivingSocial. Quite simply we believe the efforts like apply with LinkedIn will eventually replace the resume.

As we enter the back half of 2011, we couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities ahead of us. We’ll continue to make improvements in core products such as profile search, news, today and the home page. You’ll also see us continue to invest in areas such as mobile. Weekly mobile page views jumped more than 400% year-over-year making it our fastest growing consumer service and later this year we plan on refreshing our most popular mobile apps and introducing new mobile services. We are continuing to use apply with LinkedIn to reinforce LinkedIn at the professional profile of record. This bodes well to hiring solutions which is both our largest and fastest growing revenue stream.

Additionally, we believe marketing solutions had meaningful upside potential given the strength of the LinkedIn member base, as one of the most influential affluent and highly educated audiences by composition on the web. We’ll see developments later in 2011 designed to further strengthen our position in this markets. And premium subscriptions should continue to benefit from overall traffic growth, improvements to the customer acquisition flow and the introduction of new product types.

I’d like to end with one final word about talent. Specifically our only talent here at LinkedIn. Talent is the single biggest priority for us as a company, without the extraordinary people we have working here; we couldn’t accomplish what we have. We are fortunate to be able to attract the best to accept the challenge of transforming the way the world works. Going forward, we will continue to invest in attracting, retaining and developing a world-class team. And now, I’ll turn it over to Steve.

Steve Sordello

Thanks, Jeff. Before I get into the results, I want to remind you that my comments on growth rates will refer to year-over-year changes unless I indicate otherwise. Also, non-GAAP financial measures exclude stock-based compensation expenses, amortization of intangibles, and the tax impact of these adjustments.

Our second quarter results illustrate LinkedIn’s rapid growth and leadership in the professional networking markets. On the heels of the IPO and continued product traction, we achieved record results across most of our key operating and financial metrics.

First, growth in our member base accelerated to 61% and we ended the quarter with 115.8 million members. Most of our key geographies experienced multi highs in member additions with particularly strong growth in May and June following the IPO. We continue to penetrate international markets and at the end of the quarter international members represented 58% of our member base, up from 52% a year ago. Additionally, a number of our key emerging markets such as Brazil, Spain and China experienced greater than 100% year-on-year growth in the quarter and also benefited from continued improvements in the optimization of member invitations. So we accelerating growth in similar members we also witnessed a higher percentage of members coming back to the site.

Average comScore monthly unique visitors for the second quarter were a record 81.8 million up 83% compared to the prior year. This represents our fastest growth in three quarters and in June, we ranked at the 36th most visited websites worldwide according to comScore up from 59 just a year ago. Finally, comScore page views, an important aggregate measure of engagement increased to 7.1 billion up 80% compared to last year. On this front we saw strong growth in many of our key pages including the home page, people you may know, and people search. Also with the passing to opening groups, group page views accelerated through more bio adoption of the group’s product.

Our mobile pages also continue to grow rapidly reaching all time highs on a week-to-week basis with a year-over-year growth rate of approximately 400%. These three key metrics, members, unique visitors and page views reflect the platform of both significant usage and scale and in turn create the foundation underpinning our financial growth in the second quarter that growth continued to be strong.

Overall revenues were a record $121 million advancing 120% compared to the prior year. This was our fourth straight quarter of greater than 100% topline growth. Hiring solutions revenues was $58.6 million increasing 170% compared to the year ago period. This product comprised 48% of total revenues versus 40% last year. Our market expansion strategy continued to drive increased penetration in enterprise markets. During the quarter we capitalized on declining churn and improving add-on and renewal rates from existing customers. We now have over 6000 corporate customers up 163% from last year.

Our ROI in hiring solutions as measured through payback on our sales marketing investments, continued to show strength supporting our ongoing decision to invest heavily in this product. These positive trends drove increases in recurring revenues which have risen more than 170% over the past year. Our hiring solutions also contains online components including job postings and job related subscription products.

In job postings, we saw the number of active jobs on our site increased 190% year-over-year. Marketing solutions revenues were $38.6 million increasing 111% compared the prior year, the highest growth rate in five quarters. Strong international growth of our marketing field sales offerings has revenues nearly doubled in Europe and we saw very nice traction in Asia and in non-US Americas.

Our online products, LinkedIn ads nearly tripled compared to the year ago period. LinkedIn ads benefited from strong traffic growth, new ad formats and higher coverage rates. And finally premium subscriptions revenues ended the quarter at $22.9 million, up 60% year-over-year. This product area continues to show solid performance significantly outpacing the 35% year-over-year growth rate we saw in the full year of 2010.

Strength in subscription products is being driven by overall traffic growth and the introduction of dynamic chooser pages which will render relevant subscription options to members based on their profiles and usage characteristics. We also had improved conversion rates due more targeted marketing campaigns. It is important to note that in our hiring solutions category we include job-related subscriptions.

However, when we combine all of our premium subscription products together, total premium subscription revenues grew 105% year-over-year and our subscriber base continues to grow at a faster rate than overall member base.

In terms of geography international revenues were 32% of the mix during the quarter compared to 27% in the year ago quarter. The gap between our member mix and our revenue mix represents a large opportunity as we continue to invest in our international monetization platform. Turning to channel mix, online products represented 45% of revenues in the quarter, flat compared to the year ago period.

The online channels materially outperformed our expectations, given the high growth rate in the field sales business. Robust traffic levels and conversion improvements and our stop serve online products yielded strong results and the mix benefit from online sales help drive strong adjusted EBITDA margins that I will discuss further in a moment.

Before turning to the remainder of the quarter’s results, I want to remind you of our long term target financial model. We ultimately aimed to reach sustainable adjusted EBITDA margins of 35% and in the second quarter, we made meaningful progress in establishing a foundation towards this goal. Non-GAAP gross margins ended at 85% up from 82% last year. Gross margins benefited from both greater revenue scale and initial efforts to pass through a portion of the sales tax to purchases of LinkedIn field sales products.

Sales and marketing expenses were 28% of revenues on a non-GAAP basis compared to 23% last year. We have grown headcount 185% over the last year reflecting our continued investment in field sales. One important note. The vast majority of our sales and marketing spend is sales related and marketing costs are relatively small due to the viral nature of our platform.

Non-GAAP research and development expenses were 22% of revenues, down from 26% in the second quarter of last year. Despite calling as a percent of revenues, R&D spend increased 95% year-over-year and we expect even greater investment in the second half of 2011.

Non-GAAP G&A expenses were flat compared to the prior year at 13% of revenues, while G&A has remained relatively stable the past several quarters we are stepping our investment in office expansion recruiting and general public company infrastructure initiatives.

Higher topline growth and better than expected contribution from our online products drove strong bottom-line performance. Adjusted EBITDA came in at a record $26.3 million up 130% compared to the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margins were a record 22% which was nicely ahead of our expectations relative to current investment levels. Depreciation and amortization totaled $9.6 million while stock-based compensation expenses were $6.8 million in the quarter.

Taxes on a GAAP basis was $5.4 million and effective rate 55% on a non-GAAP basis, taxes were $6.8 million an effective rate of 39%. I want to take a brief moment to talk about taxes in more detail. Our tax expenses impacted by the historical granting of Incentive Stock Options or ISOs that give employees lower tax but are not tax deductibles. We expect this item to persist over time but partially reverse in out years due to disqualifying dispositions as employees begin selling stock post the lock-up period.

On the other hand, cash paid for taxes are actually quite low at $150,000 during the quarter. We expect our cash tax expense to remain low in future quarters, given the $32.5 million remaining in federal and telephony and over $7 million in R&D federal and state tax credits.

Non-GAAP net income ended the quarter at $10.8 million, translate into non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.10 on $103.1 million fully weighted diluted shares. Turning to the balance sheet, in the end of the quarter with $372.1 million of cash, cash equivalents and short term investments.

Net proceeds from the IPO were approximately $250 million and operating cash flows were a record $36 million, up over 230% against the year ago period. CapEx in the quarter was $23.4 million; we invested in expanding the existing datacenters in Los Angeles and Chicago and building on a new site in Atlanta.

Free cash flow for the period was a record $12.6 million, compared to $2.8 million in the year ago period. And ending headcount was 1515 up from 693 employees in the year ago quarter, an increase in 227 employees from the end of the first quarter. Increases from the first quarter were primarily in sales and technology.

Let me close by turning to guidance for the third quarter and an update on our 2011 full year outlook. For the third quarter we expect revenues in the range of $121 million to $125 million which equates the 96% to 102% year-over-year revenue growth.

Please note that the third quarter is typically a seasonally slower quarter given the summer months and also we believe our second quarter user and financial results benefited from higher than expected seasonal buzz due to the IPO and we expect third quarter to normalize our original expectations for the year.

For the full year, we now expect revenues to fall within the range of $475 million to $485 million resulting in approximately 95% to 100% year-on-year revenue growth. We expect third quarter adjusted EBITDA to range between $9 million and $11 million. As we previously mentioned, 2011 remains an investment year. We will continue to spend aggressively across research and development, engineering efficiencies, and by product initiatives sales and marketing via sales force and office expansions and G&A to build up the underlying support infrastructure.

For the full year, we now expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $65 million to $70 million.

In closing, our first quarter as a public company witnessed strong growth and reflected positive trends across many of our key operating and financial metrics. We had another quarter of strong members, visitor and page view growth. Revenues continue accelerate and the diversity in our business remains healthy. We saw particular strength in our leveraged online channel while continuing to build the backlog of business with key corporate accounts. And finally, we delivered record adjusted EBITDA margins and operating cash flows.

Going forward, we plan to take a long-term perspective and invest aggressively in product, engineering and infrastructure to further develop the global LinkedIn platform. We are participating in very large markets and plan to continue to invest heavily in expansion across each of our business lines to solidify our global market position. It has been a good start to 2011 and we continue to be excited about the long-term opportunity of this business.

And with that, thank you for your time and we’ll now take questions.

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Re: LinkedIn (LNKD)

Postby iam802 » Fri Nov 04, 2011 8:36 am

They are still not generating in their new services : job posting


----
LinkedIn Drops After $1.6 Million Loss

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-0 ... -loss.html

LinkedIn Corp., the biggest professional-networking website, reported a third-quarter loss of $1.6 million as the company boosted spending on research and development. The stock dropped in extended trading.

The net loss of 2 cents a share compares with a profit of $3.96 million, or 2 cents, a year earlier, the Mountain View, California-based company said today in a statement. Revenue more than doubled to $139.5 million, topping the $127.4 million average estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

LinkedIn, which first sold shares to the public in May, is increasing spending on research, sales and marketing, and office expansions to boost the company’s global presence and attract more recent college graduates to the site. Operating costs more than doubled in the period to $134.9 million. During the quarter, the company opened an office in Tokyo and acquired IndexTank to improve its search technology.

“LinkedIn plans to maintain a long-term perspective with investment in our key strategic areas,” Chief Financial Officer Steve Sordello said in the statement.

LinkedIn dropped as much as 13 percent to $76.11 in extended trading after the report. The stock rose 3.6 percent to $87.50 at the close in New York. It has surged 94 percent from LinkedIn’s initial public offering on May 18 through today’s regular trading, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has dropped 5.9 percent over that stretch.

High Multiple

After the stock’s rise since the IPO, LinkedIn is trading at 12.1 times projected sales over the next year, compared with a ratio of 5.4 for Google Inc. Even though LinkedIn beat most projections, it’s hard to justify that valuation, said Herman Leung, an analyst at Susquehanna International Group LLP in San Francisco.

“With the stock trading at the multiple it’s trading at, everything has to be perfect,” said Leung, who has a “neutral” rating on the stock.

Separately, LinkedIn said it plans to raise as much as $500 million in a stock sale. About $100 million of shares will be sold by the company, with the rest coming from existing stockholders.
LinkedIn increased its membership 63 percent from the year earlier to 131.2 million. Revenue in its hiring solutions business more than doubled to $71 million. Marketing solutions sales more than doubled to $40.1 million, and premium subscriptions revenue climbed 81 percent to $28.4 million.

Profit excluding some costs in the period was $6.6 million. LinkedIn forecast sales for the full year of $508 million to $512 million and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $83 million to $85 million. Analysts on average predict revenue of $488.9 million and Ebitda of $71.1 million.

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Re: LinkedIn (LNKD)

Postby iam802 » Sat Nov 05, 2011 9:29 am

LinkedIn beats views, will sell more shares
- Stock falls after-hours following announcement of $100M offering

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/linked ... 2011-11-03

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — LinkedIn on Thursday posted third-quarter results that beat expectations, as revenue more than doubled for the business-focused social network.

The company also announced plans to sell an additional $100 million worth of stock — six months following its IPO. LinkedIn LNKD -0.56% shares fell more than 8% in after-hours trading following the announcement of the offering.

“The principal purposes of this offering are to raise capital for the company, facilitate an orderly distribution of shares and increase the company’s public float,” the company said in a statement, adding that any selling stockholders participating in the offering will be required to a 90-day lock-up on their shares.

LinkedIn went public on May 24. The stock had an IPO price of $45 but opened at $86.50. It has been on a roller-coaster ever since, falling as low as $60.14 in late June and to a peak near the $110 mark by mid-July. It closed the regular session on Thursday up 3.6% at $87.50.

For the third quarter, LinkedIn reported a loss of $1.6 million, or 2 cents a share, compared with a profit of $915,000, or 2 cents a share, for the year-earlier period. Adjusted profit was 6 cents a share.

Revenue was $139.5 million, up from $61.8 million.

Analysts had expected the company to report a loss of 4 cents a share, on revenue of $128 million, according to a consensus survey by Thomson Reuters.

For the current quarter, LinkedIn expects revenue in the range of $153 million to $158 million. Analysts were expecting revenue of $148 million, according to data from Thomson Reuters.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company said it now has 131.2 million users, up 63% from the year-earlier period.

In a statement, LinkedIn Chief Executive Jeff Weiner said the company’s results “underscore the long-term strength of our global platform and our business model.”

But Susquehanna Financial analyst Herman Leung said the fourth-quarter outlook suggests margins that are below Wall Street’s projections

..
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Re: LinkedIn (LNKD)

Postby iam802 » Tue Feb 28, 2012 6:52 pm

Image

LinkedIn ($LNKD) may be another short candidate as it fell below the Tenkan sen.

Note: This is a counter trend short and there is no confirmation of a bearish trend yet.
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Re: LinkedIn (LNKD)

Postby iam802 » Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:25 pm

Image

Watch the Tenkan sen support. $101.8

A break from here will see a target of around $96 (gap support)

Vested.
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Re: LinkedIn (LNKD)

Postby iam802 » Thu Feb 28, 2013 8:13 am

User base is still growing.

I think LinkedIn is a threat to job site like Monster.com, JobsDB etc.


--
LinkedIn Surges to Record Amid User Growth Optimism

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-2 ... imism.html

LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD), the biggest online professional-networking service, surged to a record high after analysts from Evercore Partners Inc. (EVR) and Wunderlich Securites Inc. released bullish reports on the company’s growth prospects.

The shares climbed 6.8 percent to a record $168.55 at the close in New York. Evercore’s Ken Sena raised his price estimate to $200 from $160 and wrote in a research report today that LinkedIn could reach $280 within five years. Blake Harper at Wunderlich initiated coverage with a buy rating and a $195 target price.

LinkedIn has more than tripled since its initial public offering in May 2011, outperforming Internet companies like Facebook Inc. (FB), Groupon Inc. (GRPN) and Zynga Inc. (ZNGA), which are all trading below their IPO price. While LinkedIn has characteristics of a consumer Web company -- offering a free service and selling ads -- it also has an expanding paid subscription business for corporate customers and premium users.

“The company’s Recruiter product and broader Talent Solutions platform have become extremely valuable for recruiters,” Harper wrote in a report today. “We view LinkedIn with a very large competitive moat around its platform given strong network effects, a highly visible revenue stream and the ability to rapidly innovate with new products.”

Paid Subscribers

With its paid subscribers, LinkedIn’s growth more closely resembles so-called software-as-service providers like Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM), Workday Inc. (WDAY) and ServiceNow Inc., Sena said.

Salesforce, which provides web-based customer relationship management software, traded at 12 times sales one year after its 2004 IPO, Sena wrote. LinkedIn trades at 10 times sales this year and seven times revenue for 2014, higher than consumer Internet companies, according to his analysis.

“While LinkedIn has a large consumer-facing audience component, its businesses are increasingly akin to software enterprise providers,” Sena wrote. Those companies have “sticky subscription revenue streams, vast addressable markets” and high margins, he said.
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Re: LinkedIn (LNKD)

Postby iam802 » Wed Feb 19, 2014 10:01 pm

To stoke interest, LinkedIn opens 'Influencer' blogs to all members

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/ ... Z020140219

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - LinkedIn Corp is attempting to become more like Facebook Inc by encouraging all members to generate a steady stream of shareable articles, a perk once available only to well-known business personalities.

The move, which the company hopes will generate more interest in the site, comes two weeks after LinkedIn disclosed that page views slipped for the second consecutive quarter.

The professional networking site said on Wednesday it will algorithmically distribute career-related articles written by any users on its "Influencer program," a blogging platform previously available only to businesspeople who were invited to contribute, including well-known names like former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and billionaire Richard Branson.

By opening the program to everybody, LinkedIn hopes its users will generate a steady stream of shareable content, providing a white-collar twist on how Facebook supplies its users a continuous stream of pictures or links from their friends.

LinkedIn disclosed during its quarterly earnings call on February 6 that, following several quarters of explosive growth, page views had in fact slipped for the second consecutive period, suggesting waning user interest in revisiting the site.

Ryan Roslansky, the company head of content, argued that the "Influencers" program has been successful in boosting LinkedIn's traffic and user engagement, with each post generating 80 comments and 250 likes.

"It's starting to bring a lot of people back to the site more frequently," said Roslansky. "We want to get much more content in front of them and much more niche content about their interests."

With Influencers now broadened to many more writers, LinkedIn will use algorithms to identify articles that gain traction with readers and distribute those more broadly, Roslansky said.

In recent years LinkedIn has moved away from its roots as a dormant resume library for headhunters and job-seekers, instead positioning itself as a social hub that aggregates news, links, and status updates from members.

The company has viewed the transition toward a more lively, Facebook-esque offering as a way to pull in more users on a regular basis and more advertising revenue. LinkedIn inserts ads into users' timelines, an advertising model that has been successfully deployed by social media peers Facebook and Twitter Inc.
In April, LinkedIn acquired Pulse, a news reader app, for roughly $90 million to uncover relevant news articles as part of a daily digest to users when they log in to the site.

Roslansky said LinkedIn's new pitch to users is: "Give us 15 minutes each morning and we'll make you a better professional each day."
Under Chief Executive Jeff Weiner, the company has mostly executed its shift in strategy with few hiccups. It has beaten quarterly revenue targets every quarter since going public in mid-2011 at a $4.25 billion valuation, a sum that was derided by some investors as too high for a company with relatively little revenue.
LinkedIn, which saw its market capitalization double over the past year to $23 billion, closed 3 percent higher on Tuesday at $191.92 a share.

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1. Always wait for the setup. NO SETUP; NO TRADE

2. The trend will END but I don't know WHEN.

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