LinkedIn to launch new research network

February 6, 2008 | Eric Eldon | Comments |

linkedin020608.pngLinkedIn, the businessperson’s social network, is offering a new way for companies to gather valuable background information when they’re making decisions. It’s mining the data in its own network to identify people who are experts on trends, companies and people related to financial markets, and pairing them with customers.

It’s “a Web 2.0 version of the Gerson-Lehman Group’s expert network,” Tim O’Reilly calls it. GLG puts together networks of experts to provide feedback on any topic, which subscribers pay a large fee for.

LinkedIn tried its own professional network of “experts “last year (our coverage), which didn’t work. Now the company is apparently going to be tapping into the “social graph” of its users, analyzing relationships between people, their companies and professions to figure out who knows a lot about what.

Let’s say you’re looking at making an investment in a company that makes a certain product. You’d want to talk to the products’ buyers, its sellers, the former employees of the company. LinkedIn will be able to put you in touch with all of these people, as Mike Gamson, a general manager at LinkedIn, explains to eWeek.

The service isn’t going live for several months, and doesn’t have an available pricing fee but I, for one, am interested in trying it out for reporting on stories.

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About the Author, Eric Eldon

Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.

  • So people join Linkedin, pay a monthly fee for professional services and then their information is collected and sold by Linkedin.

    Isn't that called robbery?
  • Brock, good point.

    This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to who owns your data: You, or other companies, or both?

    LinkedIn can argue that it created the network -- that you're willing to pay for -- so it should own your connections inside of it.
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