Drawing attention to its rapid growth, the professional networking site LinkedIn was recently valued at $1 billion.  Its unique traffic increased 361% over the past year.  Although its 9,000 curious visitors don’t near myspace’s numbers, it may not be fair to compare the online community with its entertainment-based counterparts.  In fact, the key to understanding this 10-figure estimate lies in looking at LinkedIn outside the “social networking” and online “personal branding” buzz.

 

If LinkedIn’s goals were to generate the frequency of Scrabulous-fabulous Facebook or Myspace, its objectives would be fundamentally misaligned.  The working professional cares more about securing accounts than updating minor details on “My Account.”  The acceptable professional platform of identity is based on a much narrower spectrum than that of the student.  The 40+, $100K+ executives of LinkedIn’s demographic aren’t trying to reinvent their image by posting a resume.

 

The catch with meaningful online social networks is that they underscore real life relationships.  There is a good chance that your contacts online are contacts you meet in life, and a better chance that you’ll take a recommendation from someone who shook your hand than someone whose name just popped up on your monitor.  Moreover, the main attributes of LinkedIn- resume searching, instant messaging, and industry chatter- are all quite established in other mediums: Monster, Blackberry, RSS Feeds and…wait, what about industry chatter?

 

And that’s where LinkedIn may shine.  LinkedIn has the power to interactively centralize key industry players.  It challenge is to become a tool of substance, a user-driven resource of information based on the confidence already established in real-life relationships and the impulse to measure decisions by others’ opinions.  While users will have to pay careful attention to their NDAs, the opportunity to reach all contacts at once with open inquiries may transcend the current scan-and-delete trap of mass emails.  LinkedIn’s attractiveness is more than just another medium for instant communication.  It’s an efficient and professional way to capitalize on the experts often receiving the greatest priority…the colleagues you already trust.