More LinkedIn/News Corp reports coming in
November 28 Mike Butcher
The plot thickens. Last week I took the decision to go with a very strong lead that News Corporation was in talks with LinkedIn about possibly buying the professional networking site. At the time my sources said the idea was based around the concept that advertising to high-level executives is becoming much harder via print, and LinkedIn could make up revenues for News Corp in that area. It’s now emerging however that LinkedIn could well be wrapped up with the News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal and Factiva, the business news aggregator, something backed up by Breakingviews.com. It now has 17 million members and revenues from $75 million to $100 million next year. Yesterday VentureBeat, another credible venture news blog, picked up the gauntlet and confirmed via their sources that the talks were serious (though LinkedIn still declines to comment as I note here). The driving force behind the deal is said to be Jeremy Philips, a 33-year-old hotshot exec at News Corp close to chairman Rupert Murdoch, who focuses on acquisitions, oversees internet investments and - stealth like - operates an internal department dubbed News Interactive Media (NIM) which runs separately from Fox Interactive Media. Meanwhile Fortune magazine has decided to weigh-in by blogging a chat with LinkedIn’s CEO Dan Nye who is PR-ing some new community features on Dec. 10, and quotes him as saying he is only interested in “building this company” and “It would take a helluva lot to get us off that path.” He does however indicate the sale price at “a lot more” than $1 billion. I have since been back to my main source on this story and they just have one thing to say: “No smoke without fire.”
Update:
Kara Swisher from The Wall Street Journal says a LinkedIn deal with News Corp “makes a lot of sense” while Goldman Sachs Internet and media analyst Anthony Noto told the Reuters Media Summit on Wednesday: “I think LinkedIn is an important strategic asset” and “strategically, it would be a great fit [for News Corp].”
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:10 am
January 13th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
May 5th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
May 6th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Comments
November 28th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
So who likes the idea of still being a member of LinkedIn when it is owned by News Corp?
November 28th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
@George: I would have thought that the teenagers at MySpace, who tend to be more politically sensitive to ‘teh korporapetions’, would be more likely to leave a social networking site because they didn’t like the new owner than business professionals. The kids haven’t left MySpace (quite the opposite) so I’m not sure why the suits would leave LinkedIn.
Mind you, I’m not a member of LinkedIn so I’m making total guesses as to the psychology of its users. For all I know it consists entirely of twenty-two-year-old graduate analysts trying to impress each other by pretending to be directors.
November 28th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Nice story Mike. Does it really matter who owns LinkedIN, as long as they provide a niche service. What I do not get is why they bother with functionality such as Groups? I guess, that there will be further functionality rolled out, which will then make sense of why groups were introduced without sufficient functionality. I think LinkedIN has a place in the future if they do not try to become another facebook, another plaxo, etc. Just continue to do what you are good at.
Mike, you should have been at Simon and Tony’s Mashup on last Monday!
November 28th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
I think it is more of a question of are you happy handing all of your information over to Murdoch. It’s a treasure trove of talent. Or it will be one in future if people do not leave as a result of the *possible* news corp acquisition. This is more a question of control.
Murdoch is establishment ‘old’ media and they’re using ther economic clout to stifle and control the growth of the ‘new’. Controlling the flow of information is essential to the political ties held by the ‘old’ media establishment so its not surprising they’re finally pushing their weight about.
Empowered individuals through their own connections is productive for firms in terms of creativity but it also creates instability.
Why?
This new web savvy generation is decidedly more critical of globalized corporate structure due to the disparity it causes as a result. With ethics becoming more and more important to consumers business’ will be forced to comply, but this will cost them money.
Corporations sole aim is to maximize profit and they have no/few obligations to act morally and ethically.
I think it is more about controlling of ideas. Its a hard one to try to explain. Sorry if i’m not making any sense.
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