LinkedIn – Top 10 Startups Worth Watching in 2008

Some of the big movers and shakers in the CRM addon functionality business in 2008 will be around incorporating social networking into CRM applications. Why? It adds a completely new way of generating business. My favourite – LinkedIn.

Watch for it, if your not on it, get on it!

Wired mag includes LinkedIn in it’s Top 10 Startups worth watching in 2008:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/12/YE_10_startups

LinkedIn, a career-oriented social networking site, found 16 million users, yet until recently has been eclipsed by much larger, livelier competitors. Now, a much-needed upgrade has the 4-year-old startup looking pretty good after all. A new developer platform aims to bring LinkedIn networks to the web at large, starting with Business Week’s website, which will show your connections to any companies mentioned in news articles you’re reading. LinkedIn still emphasizes utility over frivolity, and that’s just the way we like it. Instead of virtual hugs and stripper name generators, expect the site to add “modules” that gather news and events from your industry. The dull-but-useful strategy seems to be working: LinkedIn projects revenues of nearly $100 million in 2008 — not too shabby compared to much larger Facebook’s estimated $150 million for 2007.

• Founders: Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly, Jean-Luc Valliant
• Funding: $27.5 million from Sequoia Capital, Greylock, the European Founders Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners, and numerous individual angel investors
• Employees: 200

Happy New Year to all and to a most profitable 2008!

Cheers.

Richard Bolton

Centricity360