MESH CONFERENCE, Tuesday-Wednesday (May 18-19). See meshconference.com for details.
In the world of Web commerce, PayPal is the bedrock.
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The money transferring service that started in 1998 is credited with revolutionizing the Internet. Its founders, the so-called PayPal Mafia, known for their ruthless entrepreneurship, are sometimes called the inspiration for Web 2.0.
Scott Thompson, who is not in the Mafia but is acting president of PayPal, will talk about his company’s stranglehold on e-commerce in his keynote speech at this year’s Mesh Conference, one of Canada’s premier Web events.
But the Wikipedia entry for PayPal, a quintessential NoCal start-up acquired by eBay in 2002, is probably familiar to most by now.
Less clear is the place that LinkedIn, the Facebook of the business world, will find in history.
It was conceived in 2002 and launched a year later by Reid Hoffman, formerly of the PayPal Mafia.
The site gained users at the rate of a million every 12 days, and, at 65 million users it continues to grow. It became profitable in 2007, well ahead of some its networking brethren.
Still, there’s a definite sense that LinkedIn’s full potential has not been reached.
Arvind Rajan, a LinkedIn VP, is coming to Mesh to explain that potential from a user’s point of view. Or, as he puts it, how to “leverage” the power of professional networking.
First, finding employment and employees, the most common uses of the network, are but two of its functions. Rajan rattles off more, creating a convincing argument why just about everyone should join.
The most impressive is the control LinkedIn gives you over your Google search results.
In most business situations, from job interviews to everyday work encounters, names get Googled. LinkedIn knows how to play the search game, powering your self-created profile to the top of these scattered (and sometimes embarrassing) search results. “LinkedIn allows you to take ownership of your professional brand,” says Rajan. “It’s something you control – your professional face to show the world.”
Another use is its ability to keep former colleagues within contact reach. People now move from job to job every two to four years, Rajan says, and over the course of a career their professional networks become unwieldy. For this, LinkedIn functions as a Rolodex.
A third function is best illustrated by the case of a recent acquisition by Apple.
Before Apple officially bought semiconductor maker Intrinsity, all its Austin, Texas, chip-making engineers changed their LinkedIn profiles to list Apple as their employer. LinkedIn, like its cousin Twitter, thus became a news breaker, providing what Rajan calls “business insights.”
Also like the partner-hungry Twitter, LinkedIn is elbowing its way into other Web arenas. Late last year, it collaborated with Microsoft on the Outlook Social Connector, embedding LinkedIn profiles in Outlook emails. (This, of course, in addition to its obligatory partnership with Twitter.)
The challenge, though, is not reaching users, but finding the way forward. With all its recent innovations (a slew of share functions arrived last week), Rajan says LinkedIn has to keep in mind its core uses. “Business professionals need to get what they need [from the site] in five minutes or less and get out.”
joshuae@nowtoronto.com
