Business networking : Linkedin en Xing

Linkedin heeft ondertussen reeds meer dan 11 miljoen personen kunnen overtuigen om hun profiel op te stellen. Dagelijks komen er bovendien 150.000 nieuwe profielen bij. De CEO van Linkedin ziet voor zijn bedrijf een mooie toekomst weggelegd : LinkedIn says it will own business networking

In the future, everyone will likely maintain two online profiles. So said LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye in an extended lunchtime interview last week here in Fortune’s conference room/pool hall. We had opened the conversation with THE question of the moment: in a Facebook world, what’s the future for LinkedIn — or for that matter any other “vertical” social network? People will build one profile for their personal life and another for their professional life. The argument, self serving as it is, makes a certain amount of sense. Not good to have a prospective employer stumble on to those photos of you freshman year in Delta Kappa Epsilon.

Een recent uitgevoerd onderzoek (Think Online Social Networking Is Kid Stuff? Think Again) bevestigt bovendien de dominante positie, althans in de Verenigde Staten, van Linkedin.

A recent survey on online social networking, conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity revealed that 65% of business professionals are clicking and connecting via personal and professional social networking Web sites. ...The most popular sites for professional use? Tops in the survey by far was LinkedIn, a site aimed at the business professional, followed by Yahoo! 360 and MySpace, which is more often associated with a younger generation. About half (52%) of respondents whose organizations are using social networking sites do so to keep internal staff and remote employees connected, while 47% of total respondents use the networks to connect with potential clients and to showcase their skills. A total of 35% say they use networks to assist them in finding a job. Over half (55%) of those using the networks do so to share best practices with colleagues, and 49% use them to get answers to issues they are currently facing.

Er zijn nog boeiende evoluties op komst in de business networking markt. Er was een gerucht dat Xing, een uit Duitsland afkomstig business network met meer dan 2 miljoen gebruikers voornamelijk in Europa, Plaxo zou overnemen. Maar beide bedrijven hebben het gerucht ondertussen ontkend, maar zouden binnenkort wel met nieuwe aankondigingen komen.

Technorati : Business networking - Linkedin - Xing - Plaxo