not sure how to make a poll here, but the first step should be to agree on the questions.

my suggestions

will linkedin be bought out (by facebook?)
will it begin to die in next 6 months?
will it finally evolve and fix long overdue problems and add features?
will something completely new emerge and overtake it?
will facebook overtake and replace it (without buying it)
will xing overtake and replace it

I've read quite a few articles lately and there is growing consensus that LInkedin better get it together fast. The 9 month plan is a joke.

I think their success was largely the 'crowd attracts a crowd' factor.

V

I choose poll option 3.

Linkedin will be bought, but not by Facebook or any other networking site. It will be bought by eBay.



Why?


Why did eBay buy Skype?

Think about it...

I naively believe that the LION endeavour can save LinkedIn from the worst, by working around some of the "long oververdue problems". That being said, if anything goes wrong with LI, we'll just pack up and move to another network... Still, there should be enough of us to keep the thing going for years, no?

Perhaps Google or (worse) Microsoft will buy LinkedIn in their never ending quest to take over the world.

Hello Everyone,

I believe that it will be bought but not in the next 9 months.

Currently LI have some problems but we are still 19 million members and that is a lot.

I would suggest that LI get fixed the problems quickly or they will see that activity will drop as LI'ers move activity to another platform and eventually closes their profile.

Frank Mandix [LION]
Let's connect: http://tinyurl.com/2ajavb

I hope that LinkedIn will be purchased by somebody that has a vision for what LinkedIn is, a group that understands the BUSINESS LinkedIn is part of.

The management of LinkedIn seem to be at war with themselves. The say you should only link to "people you know" but as many of us have found. LinkedIn's strength is in linking to people who you don't know, but with openness to developing future communication.

This conflict of interest is best demonstrated by the way LinkedIn Groups has got wwaaayy out of hand. Senseless badge collecting has become rife.

It would be sad to see LinkedIn DIE, but that's quite possible, there are many new social networks developing, some of them with very impressive user interfaces. Remember what happened to Friendster? I wonder too, if Facebook isn't looking into down the barrel of a shotgun?

John

I don't think LI can die. So that is one down . Be bought? Is it worth it? There are now a lot of competitors who are probably better prepared for the future (Xing for instance). Number of users is not everything... So I guess "evolve" is my answer... But so far I am not convinced by the path followed by the management...

Francois
http://www.linkedin.com/in/professional
http://www.xing.com/go/invita/369754


P.S.: Sorry, could not delete this duplicate...

Post edited by: fea, at: 2008/06/02 23:09

I don't think LI can die. So that is one down . Be bought? Is it worth it? There are now a lot of competitors who are probably better prepared for the future (Xing for instance). Number of users is not everything... So I guess "evolve" is my answer... But so far I am not convinced by the path followed by the management...

Francois
http://www.linkedin.com/in/professional
http://www.xing.com/go/invita/369754