Huge growth for LinkedIn

Nielsen Online reports some figures for LinkedIn, which grew its number of unique users more than fourfold since last March.  Of course, Facebook and MySpace are bigger, but while Facebook nearly doubled its users since this time last year, while MySpace grew by only 8 percent.

It’s unlikely that LinkedIn — targeting a specific audience — will ever grow large enough to challenge the more general social networking sites, but it’s seen pretty incredible growth within its niche.

Site Unique AudienceMarch ‘08 Unique AudienceMarch ‘07 % change
MySpace 60,398,000 55,937,000 8%
Facebook 24,940,000 12,622,000 98%
Classmates Online 13,599,000 12,991,000 5%
LinkedIn 7,877,000 1,878,000 319%
Windows Live Spaces 7,852,000 9,076,000 -13%
Reunion 5,940,000 5,217,000 14%
AOL Hometown 5,785,000 9,246,000 -37%
Club Penguin 4,623,000 3,482,000 33%
AOL Community 3,229,000 4,640,000 -30%
Buzznet.com 2,717,000 1,822,000 49%

Some great resources offered by DallasBlue:

MyLinkWiki - LinkedIn info and helpoffers hundreds of pages with LinkedIn articles, support, and links to other sites.

DallasBlue MyLink LinkedIn Family has lists of Groups, services and a ton of useful and fun tricks.


LinkedIn New Group: the Biorepository Hub
 
 
Biobanks are a new frontier for biomolecular research, clinical genomics and personal medicine that seeks to integrate collections of bio-specimens (blood, DNA, tissue, biopsy specimens, etc) with corresponding data such as genetic profiles, medical histories, and lifestyle information.

A new group has been created on LinkedIn to serve professionals in the biobanking industry. The group is the Biorepository Hub and may be joined by visiting:  http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/87552/613E927AA8F3

Biorepository Hub will serve as a connection point for scientists and engineers in this emerging discipline. The groups function is an additional free service of LinkedIn.  I hope that you will find this network valuable in your research.

P.S. We also maintain a group on LinkedIn for the Laboratory Robotics Interest Group which your members may find interesting:

Best regards,
Andy
Social Networking is now a fact of life, and many members of this group are looking for good ways to use it. Here are some interesting data taken from a mass mailing sent to me by Execunet:  

Follow the money to online social networks, as the latest Wealth Survey from the Luxury Institute revealed that 60 percent of wealthy Americans with an average income of $287,000/year and net worth of $2.1 million participate in online social networks, compared to just 27 percent a year ago.

These affluent individuals are most likely members of 2.8 social networks, with roughly 110 connections, and membership in social networks increase with earnings: those earning over $300,000/year average participation in 3.4 social networks.

Affluent Americans are not the only ones rubbing online elbows. Global Secure Systems estimates that social networking during business hours accounts for three weeks per year of lost time in the UK, at a productivity and bandwidth loss of £6.5 billion per annum.

That's a lot of devotion to browsing, connecting, updating, sharing and researching on the 100+ most notable social networking sites listed on Wikipedia, and the countless others devoted to every type of occupation and preoccupation proliferating daily across the web.
 
LinkedIn is my the contact management system for professional sources.
 
Facebook: a fun platform for interacting with friends and family: my wife and kids spend hours there, and its a good connection for their pictures from college (I look over my wife's shoulder).
 
Personally, I don't have time to spend with Execunet: LinkedIn takes priority, as more of my peers are there.  Does any one in Bio/Pharma disagree?
 
You have to limit the time you spend on electronic networks — but I ask that serious Bio/Pharma folk should give enough time to our Biotech & Pharma Network.  I dont think there is another like it, and we need your participation.