Type of business | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Type of site
|
Social network service |
Available in | Multilingual (24) |
Founded | December 28, 2002 Mountain View, California, U.S. |
Headquarters | Sunnyvale, California, U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
Founder(s) |
Reid Hoffman Allen Blue Konstantin Guericke Eric Ly Jean-Luc Vaillant |
Key people |
Reid Hoffman (Chairman) Jeff Weiner (CEO) |
Industry | Internet |
Revenue | US$3 billion (2015) |
Net income | US$−166 million (2015) |
Employees | 9,732 (March 2016) |
Parent | Microsoft Corporation |
Slogan(s) | Relationships Matter |
Website | www |
Alexa rank | 15 (November 2016[update]) |
Advertising | Google, AdSense |
Registration | Required |
Users | 106 million active users (September 2016) |
Launched | May 5, 2003 |
Current status | Active |
LinkedIn (/ˌliŋkt.ˈɪn/) is a business and employment-oriented social networking service that operates via websites. Founded on December 28, 2002, and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking, including employers posting jobs and job seekers posting their CVs. As of 2015, most of the site's revenue came from selling access to information about its users to recruiters and sales professionals. As of September 2016, LinkedIn has more than 467 million accounts, out of which more than 106 million are active. LinkedIn allows users (workers and employers) to create profiles and "connections" to each other in an online social network which may represent real-world professional relationships. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection. The "gated-access approach" (where contact with any professional requires either an existing relationship, or the intervention of a contact of theirs) is intended to build trust among the service's users. LinkedIn participated in the EU's International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles.
The site has an Alexa Internet ranking as the 14th most popular website (October 2016[update]). According to the New York Times, US high school students are now creating LinkedIn profiles to include with their college applications. Based in the United States, the site is, as of 2013, available in 24 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Czech, Polish, Korean, Indonesian, Malay, and Tagalog. LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the symbol "LNKD".