In the good ole days a businessman's social network meant a lot of "pressing the flesh" and if you worked your network just right there might be a payoff. In today's world business folks are making connections by reaching out to their online network, mostly via LinkedIn an 8 year old Mountain View, California based social network for grown ups (and by grown ups I mean anyone who has, wants, needs a job, sales, or an introduction from an acquaintance or colleague... past or present).
Yesterday LinkedIn filed papers with the Securities Exchange Commission regarding it's intent to make an initial public offering (IPO). According to it's filing LinkedIn managed sales of $161.4 million in the first nine months of 2010 equaling profits of $10 million. I guess you could say that a down economy is probably not a bad thing for growing a user base for a service like LinkedIn, and a turn around will do it a great deal of good as 41% of it's revenues come from it's "hiring solutions".
What will make this one an interesting IPO to watch is that it's coming in advance of some other expected offerings and will undoubtedly test the waters and set investor expectations.
