professional affiliation spaces linkedin, viadeo, xing and branchout dave coleman eamonn carey...
TRANSCRIPT
Professional Affiliation Spaces
LinkedIn, Viadeo, Xing and BranchOutDave ColemanEamonn CareyGraham Colmer
Introduction to Professional Networking.
• What are Professional Affiliate Spaces or Professional Networks?
• What do they do and who uses them?• Used to network, build relationships, connect to peers and expert
groups and enhance employment opportunities. • Members use free or paid plans.• Businesses offer recruiting and advertising services to members.
• Who are the companies providing the service?• What was there before?• Web 1.0.• Offline recruitment .• Freemasonry?
It’s all about numbers.• LinkedIn: born 2003, floated: May 2011, members: 150+ million. • Fact: Ireland has one of the highest LinkedIn penetration rates
worldwide.• “Share surge signals dotcom bubble 2.0”, The Guardian.
• Xing: born 2003, floated: Dec 2006, members: 11+ million. • Fact: Dominates German speaking regions (DACH)
•Viadeo: born 2004.• Members: 40+ million (2nd largest worldwide next to LinkedIn). • Fact: No.1 in China with 8+ million members.
•BranchOut: born July 2010.• Members: 3.5 million. • Fact: MC Hammer has no membership plan.
Oh, there’s the money.• IPO information:• LinkedIn listed at $45 in May 2011 now $92.• Xing listed at €30 in December 2006 now €49.
• Annual report data:• Viadeo and BranchOut are private companies.• LinkedIn made $63 million in 2011.• Xing made €20 million in 2011.
But is that real money?• Apple has a Market Cap of 560billion.
• Net profit of 45 billion.• Net profit is 8% of its market cap
• Xing has a Market Cap of 268Million.• Net profit of 20 million.• Net profit is 7.4% of market cap.
• LinkedIn has a Market Cap of 9.4billion.• Net profit of 63 million.• Net Profit is 0.6% of market cap.
• It would take 12 years for Apple to pay for itself.• 13 years for Xing.• 149 years for LinkedIn.• Take a guess for Facebook?
Growing pains.• The four companies operate in the exact same market but
pursue different expansion strategies.• LinkedIn increases user-base in existing markets.• Viadeo targets the emerging markets through acquisitions:
• China (Tianji).• India (ApnaCircle).• South America (ICTnet).• Canada (UNYK).
• Xing focus on their existing user-base and buying innovative services.
• BranchOut grows symbiotically with Facebook.
It’s tough to scale!• System architecture is struggling to keep up with the rate at
which the network grows. • Over 2 new LinkedIn members per second. • Extra engineers are being employed to focus on site speed and
reliability.• The now defunct Friendster network could not scale to meet
the demands of its users. • Pages taking up to 30 seconds to load. • Users moved to other sites such as Bebo and MySpace.
Surely it can’t last?• Big competition to break into each others markets.• BranchOut’s dependency on Facebook for their user-base.• Smaller networks threatenend by LinkedIn taking their market
share.• Viadeo’s aggressive expansion in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India,
China).• Chinese market - will LinkedIn or Viadeo succeed there?• Political• Censorship• Cultural• Design• Incumbents (Wealink, RenHE)
Back to the future.• Popular recruitment websites such as Monster are gradually
being super-seeded by professional networks. Recruitment agents can connect directly with potential candidates and also search based on their skillset.• Other competitors like Amazon, Microsoft, Google+ (Gmail
being a corporate email system now and Hangouts) • Future of professional networks is unclear, still a relatively
young industry.• User concern about privacy is growing as is their desire to keep
their professional and social lives totally separate. This is a potential downfall for BranchOut.
Back to the future.• Recruitment website’s being super-seeded by professional
networks.• Growing concern over online privacy.• Professional Networking is still a relatively young industry. It is
unclear at this stage what the future holds for this industry.