Dharmesh Shah co-founder of HubSpot a new startup based in Cambridge, MA has some interesting thoughts on the popular social networking site LinkedIn. Specifically, why he thinks Google or Yahoo should buy them.
I think LinkedIn is missing a major, major opportunity. It seems they are experiencing all the downsides of a “Web 2.0†company (primarily the lack of a defined revenue model) without truly exploiting some of the “upside†(leveraging the network and becoming a “platform†provider)
I couldn’t agree with him more. I have been an avid user of LinkedIn for years, and have thought the same thing, that something just isn’t being taken advantage of here with the power of the network. I meet alot of people, have a small but growing network on their platform, but have yet to extract any true value perse. That is also the case for many folks that I know who also use the service.
If Google were to buy LinkedIn and rollout an API, we’d see really cool applications much like the ones developers are deploying using Google Maps.
Check out Dharmesh’s post and check out his thinking on the subject, he has some really interesting points on the possibilites of a LinkedIn API and what a company like Google could do with it.
Creating “search†mechanisms that are limited to the data within my network. So, when I do a search on Google, if there are people related somehow to the items I’m searching on, they would show up as “sublinks†in my search results. So, when I search on CRM and Siebel shows up in the list, wouldn’t it be powerful to have the three “closest†people within my network that are related to Siebel to show up in my list? Then, I could click on these people and navigate to the LinkedIn profile for these people.
Good stuff, thanks for sharing Dharmesh!
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I would use the API to search my prospecting list to see if there is anyone in my network that would qualify as a warmer lead.
This idea is pretty powerful.