Why Google Should Buy LinkedIn Now, Before It's Too Late (GOOG)

Google's new CEO Larry Page is all about winning in social, tying every Googler's bonus to the success of the company's social strategy.

And he's right: Google absolutely needs to win in social because social is driving an ever increasing share of online traffic, and traffic is power and money.

An obvious shortcut for Google to win social is buying other successful social companies.

The company that most often comes up as a potential target is Twitter, because it's the biggest Facebook rival and it's struggling to find a good business model, which means Google could be a long term home for it. But Twitter doesn't want to sell.

One that gets less talked about is LinkedIn, because LinkedIn is more "niche" (albeit a huge niche). But with yesterday's news that LinkedIn is becoming a traffic firehose with its new focus on content, we should note the big reason why LinkedIn would make a very valuable social property for Google.

LinkedIn has one thing that no one else except Facebook has: REAL IDENTITIES.

The focus on real identities is one of the biggest factors in Facebook's success. At the beginning, you could only sign up with a college, and then a work email, which made people sign up with their real identities. Today Facebook still enforces its only-real-names policy.

Real identities are why people go on Facebook all the time. It makes the site feel more trustworthy. It makes sure people have their real friends on there with real photos. Being an online identity repository and system is a huge competitive advantage for Facebook, and something it's doing effortlessly despite every big company trying and failing to get people to use their real identities online. Real identities are what makes social networks "stick" and be so valuable.

With LinkedIn, Google would instantly get a database of 100 million real and valuable identities, which it can then cross-pollinate with Google Profiles, its own ho-hum effort to get people to give it their own real identities.

LinkedIn can then evolve its focus slowly and progressively away from "merely" professional networking. The barrier between personal and professional identity online is getting blurrier and blurrier anyway. Services like Twitter and About.me are already hard at work obliterating that distinction. That would be bad for LinkedIn as a standalone company, but great for a Google-owned LinkedIn.

Sharing content is another big social network activity that LinkedIn is already shifting to, and combining Google's new sharing service +1 with LinkedIn would give it that instant boost. LinkedIn would stop being a resume database but become a sharing hub for information like Facebook and Twitter. 

Integrating LinkedIn profiles and Gmail, like third-party tools like Rapportive already do, would also be a big boon: opening an email you would see not only a person's email and "name" but their real identity. Integrating LinkedIn and Gmail that way might cause privacy jitters (but again, some tools already do this using publicly available info and APIs) but it would improve Gmail and drive a huge new wave of signups to LinkedIn.

In time, LinkedIn could go from being a social network for execs, to a social network for people who have jobs, to a social network for everyone. That would be a real threat for Facebook.

If Google wants to buy LinkedIn, it had better do it soon rather than before it gets a huge IPO pop. So it's something to think about.

By The Way: LinkedIn Makes It Impossible For You To Quit →

Don't Forget: LinkedIn Is One Of The Huge Tech IPOs Coming This Year →

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See Also:

• 10 Of Google's Weirdest Investments
• Everything You Need To Know About How Phones Are Stalking You Everywhere
• Microsoft Antitrust Oversight Ends In May, But Don't Expect A Return To Its Old Ways

Why Google Should Buy LinkedIn Now, Before It's Too Late (GOOG)

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What If It's Not Too Late For Windows Mobile?

Conventional wisdom is that mobile is like PCs: Android-iOS is like Windows-Mac and we are in the Windows 3.1 phase.

The Android hardware universe is aligned, the OS is good enough, and the next big rev will actually be better in many ways than iOS.

The steam is building in market share as a wide range of prices, form factors, and OEMs introduce tons of phones.

And more phones = more apps, the key to this battle. With apps, Android will tip all measures in its favor over iOS and sayonara from here on.

Here is a different possibility.

It could be more like Sega Genesis vs. Super Nintendo or the rest of the game console cycles.

There, a tech driven hardware platform would launch every so often, a couple of key platforms would win most of the share and attract most of the applications, of which users might own 10-20 on average, and reign supreme for a few years.

Then all the lockin would be gone and the next would supercede.

In the time that Microsoft came to dominate the business computing market since 1980, the lords of gaming have been: Atari, Commodore, Nintendo, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, and again Microsoft.

Could mobile be like this?

This is a consumer led war, while PCs was led by IT departments. The lock-in from Office apps and tons of little custom VB apps for companies is not there this time because a) the mobile web is the app platform of choice for custom subscale stuff and b) the phone is a consumer-selected product anyway (users take it with them when they quit).

The hardware drives massive feature revolutions -- bar phones, flip phones, touch screen, 2g, 3g, cameras, music... what's next?

Ask Donkey Kong.

This post originally appeared at Drwn News.

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What If It's Not Too Late For Windows Mobile?

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Is it Too Late for Foursquare Competitors? SCVNGR Hopes Not, Launches New Apps

SCVNGR, one of the up-and-coming startups in the "check-in" application category has been on a roll lately. It has almost 500,000 users, is on track for reaching one million users by year-end, has integrated with Facebook Places, has launched a self-serve platform and has established partnerships with 1,000 businesses including Warner Bros., Sony, NatGeo, ZipCar, Journeys, Hot Topic, NE Patriots, Boston Celtics, NY Times, Boston Globe, and several universities. There are also 12,000 locations offering rewards to the app's users.

Today, SCVNGR is launching updated versions of its mobile applications for iPhone and Android, in hopes of enticing even more users to sign up.

Sponsor

SCVNGR 3.5

The new release, SCVNGR 3.5, is much more social. Users can now comment on their friends' check-ins and activity or even just dole out a "plus one" (+1), common Web shorthand for "I agree."

Another new feature is the "social map," which, like it sounds, maps your friends' check-ins on a map. The activity streams feature has also been updated, aggregating check-ins, pictures, badges, challenges and rewards into the stream together.

Finally, the updated version of SVNGR is better highlighting where you can find real-world rewards, one of the primary reasons users download and play apps like these. In the Places section, for example, businesses offering rewards display "REWARD" next to their entry. And a "Rewards Nearby" feature within the "Rewards" section will help you scout out deals. Meanwhile, the "My Rewards" feature lets you track your progress on achieving various rewards, which are given out after a certain number of points are reached.

But Can Anyone Beat Foursquare?

SCVNGR, a Google-backed venture, launched in May of this year under the direction of Seth Priebatsch, its 21-year-old CEO. Priebatsch created his first startup at the age of 12, and later launched SCVNGR as a college freshman. He's now on "leave-of-absence" from Princeton, managing a team of nearly two dozen at SCVNGR, a company whose most popular demographic is 17-31 year olds. As Foursquare is now doing with its university program and college-themed badges, SCVNGR is heavily involved in college outreach, working with 20 universities, offering ways to entice users to explore their campus.

Of course, SCVNGR still trails behind location-based startup Foursquare in terms of user base. As of yesterday, Foursquare just hit the 4-million user mark, which prompted blogger Om Malik to note that reaching a million users for a service is the hardest. "Once you get those, the rest is gravy," he said. But SCVNGR may soon join the million user club, if its growth trend continues - it's signing up about 5,000 users per day right now. However, compared to Foursquare's 20,000 users per day, it's still going to lag far behind.

Whether or not SCVNGR, or any check-in service for that matter, can catch up with Foursquare's lead at this point is debatable. Have you played SCVNGR? Tell us what you think in the comments.

Discuss

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