Timeline of LinkedIn

This is a timeline of online work-focused networking service LinkedIn.

Big picture

Time period Key developments at LinkedIn
2002–2010 LinkedIn is founded, introduces premium services for generating revenues, achieves profitability in 2006 (being the first major social network/Web 2.0 enterprise to do so), becomes the most popular site for work-based networking, and acquires its first startups. It reaches 70 million users by June 2010.[1]
2011–2016 LinkedIn goes IPO, reaches beyond 100 million users, and expands more aggressively internationally. It reaches 300 million members in 2013, and 400 million in 2016. LinkedIn gets acquired by Microsoft in June 2016.

Full timeline

Year Month and date Event type Details
2002 December 14 Company LinkedIn is founded by Reid Hoffman and 4 other friends.[1]
2003 May 5 Company LinkedIn cofounders send invitations, launching LinkedIn.[1]
2003 August Competition XING, a social networking site for professionals, is launched in Germany. [2]
2003 Autumn Funding Sequoia Capital leads the Series A investment in the company.[3]
2004 May Competition Viadeo – a social networking site for business owners, entrepreneurs and managers – is launched in France. [4]
2004 August Growth LinkedIn reaches 1 million users.[1]
2005 July Product LinkedIn launches LinkedIn for Groups, a premium service aimed at power users like recruiters, analysts and researchers.[5]
2005 August Product LinkedIn launches a premium service, LinkedIn Business Accounts, which gives businesses access to more powerful search tools.[6]
2006 March Company LinkedIn achieves its first month of profitability.[1]
2007 February Team Dan Nye becomes CEO of LinkedIn, and Reid Hoffman moves from CEO to chairman and president.[1]
2007 April Growth LinkedIn reaches 10 million users.[1]
2007 May Product LinkedIn launches "who's been viewing your profile" feature.[7]
2008 February Product LinkedIn launches a mobile version of the site. [8]
2008 April Product LinkedIn launches “People You May Know” feature.[9]
2008 June Funding Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and other venture capital firms purchase a 5% stake in the company for $53 million, giving the company a post-money valuation of approximately $1 billion.[10]
2008 September Product LinkedIn launches targeted advertising - allowing advertisers to target specific sections of LinkedIn users (InCrowds) based on the information in their profiles. [11]
2008 October Product LinkedIn enables an "applications platform" that allows other online services to be embedded within a member's profile page. Among the initial applications are an Amazon Reading List that allows LinkedIn members to display books they are reading, a connection to Tripit, and a Six Apart, WordPress and TypePad application that allows members to display their latest blog postings within their LinkedIn profile.[12]
2009 December Internationalization LinkedIn opens office in India, and says that 50% of its userbase is now international.[13]
2010 March Internationalization LinkedIn opens an International Headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.[14]
2010 July Funding LinkedIn receives a $20 million investment from Tiger Global Management LLC at a valuation of approximately $2 billion. [15]
2010 August Acquisitions LinkedIn announces its first acquisition, Mspoke, for its “adaptive personalization engine”.[16]
2011 May 19 Company LinkedIn IPOs and trades its first shares under the NYSE symbol "LNKD", at $45 per share.[1]
2011 July Product LinkedIn launches a new feature allowing companies to include an "Apply with LinkedIn" button on job listing pages.[17] The new plugin will allow potential employees to apply for positions using their LinkedIn profiles as resumes. All applications will also be saved under a "Saved Jobs" tab.[17]
2012 February 22 Acquisitions LinkedIn announces that it will acquire Rapportive, a Gmail plugin that shows people the social media profiles from whoever they're corresponding with on Gmail.[18]
2012 May 3 Acquisitions LinkedIn acquires SlideShare for $119 million. SlideShare is a web service that allows people to upload presentations and share them with everyone. [19] [20]
2012 June Company LinkedIn falls victim to a hacking attempt that resulted in 6.5 million hashed passwords reportedly leaked - revealing that LinkedIn does not use password salting.[21] [22] In 2016, the company reveals that the breach was far greater than originally thought. [23]
2012 September Product LinkedIn starts allowing users to endorse each other's skills. [24]
2012 October Product LinkedIn launches the "Influencer" program, allowing selected “thought leaders” (their term) to share original content directly with LinkedIn users.[25]
2013 January Competition TalentBin launches. It is a "search engine" for talented people that picks up their digital tracks (on sites like Stack Exchange) to sell to recruiters.[26]
2013 July 23 Product LinkedIn announces their Sponsored Updates ad service. Individuals and companies can now pay a fee to have LinkedIn sponsor their content and spread it to their user base. This is a common way for social media sites such as LinkedIn to generate revenue.[27]
2013 April Acquisitions LinkedIn acquires Pulse (app), a popular newsreader for the web and mobile.[28]
2013 September Legal A class action lawsuit is filed against LinkedIn, accusing it of automatically sending invitations to contacts in a user's email address book without permission. The court agreed with LinkedIn that permission had in fact been given for invitations to be sent, but not for the two further reminder emails.[29]
2014 April Internationalization LinkedIn launches a new Chinese website in the Chinese language.[30]
2014 April Company LinkedIn leases 222 Second Street, a 26-story building under construction in San Francisco's SoMa district, to accommodate up to 2,500 of its employees
2014 July 14 Acquisitions LinkedIn acquires Newsle, a service that allows users to follow real news about their Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts, and public figures.[31]
2015 January 14 Competition Facebook announces launch of Facebook at Work, which allows businesses to create their own social networks amongst their employees that are built to look and act like Facebook itself.[32]
2015 February Legal LinkedIn settles a class action lawsuit, compensating up to 800,000 people who paid for its premium services who alleged that it falsely assured them it was using strong security measures to protect their personal information. [33]
2015 April 9 Acquisitions In its largest acquisition to date ($1.5 billion), LinkedIn announces its acquisition of Lynda.com, an eLearning platform allowing users to learn business, technology, software, and creative skills through videos.[34]
2015 May 7 Product LinkedIn adds an analytics tool to its publishing platform. The tool allows authors to better track traffic that their posts receive.[35]
2015 October Product LinkedIn introduces new mobile app, codenamed "Project Voyager", making the design more intuitive. [36]
2016 February Company LinkedIn's shares drop 43.6% within a single day following an earnings report, down to $108.38 per share. LinkedIn loses $10 billion of its market capitalization that day.[37][38]
2016 June 13 Acquisitions Microsoft announces the acquisition of LinkedIn at $26.2 billion ($60 per user). [39] [40] [41]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Ann Byers (15 July 2013). Reid Hoffman and Linkedin. The Rosen Publishing Group. pp. 2003–. ISBN 978-1-4488-9537-3.
  2. ↑ "XING". Https:. Retrieved September 11, 2016.
  3. ↑ "LinkedIn | Crunchbase Profile". CrunchBase. TechCrunch. Archived from the original on November 29, 2011. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
  4. ↑ "These are the local social networks in Europe - Ecommerce News". Ecommercenews.eu. Retrieved September 11, 2016.
  5. ↑ "LinkedIn Launches Premium Service – InternetNews.". Internetnews.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  6. ↑ "LinkedIn Corporation – Linkedin Launches Premium Service For Recruiters And Researchers". Investors.linked.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Guess who's viewed your profile?". Blog.linkedin.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  8. ↑ "Announcing LinkedIn Mobile (includes an iPhone version)". Retrieved September 11, 2016.
  9. ↑ "Learn more about "People You May Know"". Blog.linkedin.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  10. ↑ Guynn, Jessica (June 18, 2008). "Professional networking site LinkedIn valued at $1 billion". The Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on June 22, 2008. Retrieved August 1, 2013.
  11. ↑ "LinkedIn launches advertising network". The Guardian. Retrieved September 11, 2016.
  12. ↑ Facebook in a Suit: LinkedIn Launches Applications Platform, Business Week, October 28, 2008
  13. ↑ "LinkedIn Furthers Expansion In India With Local Office And Media Partnerships". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  14. ↑ "LinkedIn establishment of International Headquarters in Dublin welcomed by IDA Ireland" (Press release). IDA Ireland. March 23, 2010. Archived from the original on October 25, 2012. Retrieved August 2, 2013.
  15. ↑ Levy, Ari (July 28, 2010). "Tiger Global Said to Invest in LinkedIn at $2 billion Valuation". Bloomberg. Bloomberg L.P. Archived from the original on December 29, 2011. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
  16. ↑ Hardy, Quentin (August 4, 2010). "LinkedIn Hooks Up". Forbes. Archived from the original on August 5, 2010. Retrieved August 5, 2010.
  17. 1 2 Colleen Taylor, GigaOm. "LinkedIn launches job application plugin." July 25, 2009. Retrieved July 25, 2011.
  18. ↑ "Rapportive Announces Acquisition By LinkedIn, (Basically) Confirms $15M Price". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 27, 2016.
  19. ↑ "What Is LinkedIn SlideShare? – Business Insider". Businessinsider.com. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
  20. ↑ "Gigaom". Https:. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
  21. ↑ "LinkedIn is 10 Years Old: Here's How it Changed the Way we Work". Thenextweb.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  22. ↑ "LinkedIn Breach Exposes Light Security Even at Data Companies". The New York Times. June 10, 2012. Retrieved September 10, 2016.
  23. ↑ "Hacker advertises details of 117 million LinkedIn users on darknet". The Guardian. Retrieved September 11, 2016.
  24. ↑ "LinkedIn Introduces Endorsements - Business Insider". Businessinsider.com. Retrieved September 11, 2016.
  25. ↑ "The Surprising Brilliance Of The LinkedIn Influencers Program". Linkedin.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  26. ↑ "TalentBin Takes On LinkedIn By Targeting Recruiters". Fastcompany.com. Retrieved April 27, 2016.
  27. ↑ "LinkedIn Expands Ad Program With Launch Of Sponsored Updates Program". Techcruch.com. Retrieved 2015-10-06.
  28. ↑ "LinkedIn Acquires Pulse For $90M In Stock And Cash". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  29. ↑ "PacerMonitor Document View – 5:13-cv-04303 – Perkins et al v. LinkedIn Corporation, Docket Item 1" (PDF). Pacermonitor.com. 2013-09-17. Retrieved 2015-10-06.
  30. ↑ "LinkedIn Expands in China With Local Website – Bloomberg". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  31. ↑ "LinkedIn Acquires Start-Up Newsle". 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2014-07-23.
  32. ↑ "Facebook Unveils Facebook At Work, Lets Businesses Create Their Own Social Networks". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 27, 2016.
  33. ↑ "LinkedIn Settles Class-Action Suit Over Weak Password Security". The New York Times. Retrieved September 8, 2016.
  34. ↑ "LinkedIn just bought online learning company Lynda for $1.5 billion". Business Insider. 2015-04-09. Retrieved 2015-04-09.
  35. ↑ Ingrid Lunden; “"Who's Viewed Your Posts?" LinkedIn Adds Analytics To Its Publishing Platform.” Techcrunch.com, May 7, 2015. May 7, 2015.
  36. ↑ "LinkedIn shows off Project Voyager, its new flagship mobile app". Venturebeat.com. Retrieved September 11, 2016.
  37. ↑ Luc Cohen (February 8, 2016). "CEOs, venture backers lose big as LinkedIn, Tableau shares tumble". Reuters.
  38. ↑ Rosenfeld, Everett (5 February 2016). "LinkedIn skids 40%, erases $10B in market cap". Cnbc.com. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  39. ↑ "Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn – The Fire Hose". Financial Times. June 13, 2016. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
  40. ↑ "Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 billion". Theverge.com. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
  41. ↑ "Microsoft to Acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
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