LinkedIn IPO

Reuters has reported that LinkedIn is headed for an IPO. This will make it one of the first social networks to go public. The company claims to have 12 million users, and is likely to have $100 million in revenue by 2008.

LinkedIn was founded by Reid Hoffman in the year 2003 and he managed the company as the founding CEO for the first four years before moving to his role as Chairman and President, Products in February this year.

LinkedIn is located in Mountain View, California and is funded by world-class investors including Sequoia Capital, Greylock, the European Founders Fund, and Bessemer Venture Partners

In December 2006, Xing , the so-called “LinkedIn of Europe”, raised 35.7 million Euros in an IPO. Compare this to the Infoedge IPO, which helped Info Edge raise Rs 170 crore.

The LinkedIn Blog however does not have a mention of this story. I would write more about the Blog in my next post.

Delhi Autos dot com!

Indian is embracing the Internet well now. As we read reports from IAMAI and other sources that the Internet penetration and usage is increasing at a good rate, we are encountering the word 'dot com' more often in our day to day lives.

The newspapers are covering the Internet better, there are TV shows and there are FMCG brands creating brand/segment specific websites to increase the customer interaction. Whats interesting is that you are getting to see the word 'dot com' at places where you would expect it the least. On the back of Autos in Delhi, for instance.

The first time I noticed it was when I saw a sticker of mouthshut on an auto, while I was driving down to my office. Some weeks later I saw another one. This time it was oktatabyebye, which is the blogsite of the travel portal MMT.

I am sceptical if any kind of milage (in terms of customer acquisition) is derived out of such promotion. However I am forced to think that there could be some juice in it as more and more sites are using the 'Autos Back' to publicise their urls.

Thanks to my Nokia N70, you can see what I clicked, on my way to the office.

Helped by a 'Halwaii'

In these last few years of creating and managing Internet products, I usually had a tough time explaining my 'work' to people and friends in general. Internet is, still to a majority of people, nothing more than Email and Chat. However a lot of kids would tell you that they know Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia.
I might sound like I live in a far off village somewhere in the Himalayas, but no, I am in New Delhi and that too in the heart of the city in South Delhi, however the setting is a mix of modern day apartments and an adjoining semi-urban residential colony.
Last evening, everything changed! Thanks to the neighbourhood Halwaii (sweet shop owner).
I was at Madhuvan Sweets to buy Kadai Paneer to have it for dinner. It usually takes 10 minutes to get it packed, so I was just standing idle waiting for my food to arrive. I heard the shop owner talk to another person, and was immediately drawn near as I heard the word 'Search'.
Bunty (the shop-owner) was expressing his inability to find a machine for producing 'Vark'. Vark is a thin silver foil that is edible and is used to decorate traditional Indian sweets. He said he had searched and explored all resources on the Internet. I became even more interested and as I thought I can really contribute, I suggested him a few sites like Globalsources, but he knew it all.
With people like Bunty looking at Internet as a utility, people like Praveen can enjoy the 'Kadai Paneer' and have a 'Rasmalai' too!!

Fly for less!!

I would now wait for this one. Travel portals in India like Yatra, Indiatimes, MMT, Cleartrip, would be looking to implement this sort of a service for their users soon......
I am talking about YAPTA which is a clear disruption in the online travel space. Yapta does a lot of things for its users:

1. Gives alerts on Price Drops!
2. Tags exactly the flights that you want to track.
3. Gives refund if the price drops!!
4. Tracks prices of all flights at 1 place

The user needs to,

• dowload the Yapta Tagger. Whether you have already purchased a ticket or are just starting your travel planning
• All the trips are stored in theYapta account so the user can glance at all the latest prices in one location.
• User enters the confirmation code and Yapta will then track prices on that flight and alert the user if eligible for a refund.

Launched as beta Yapta currently works with the following sites...
Alaska Airlines Northwest Airlines American Airlines Orbitz
Continental Southwest Airlines Delta Air Lines Ted Airlines
Expedia Travelocity Frontier Airlines United Airlines JetBlue US

Lets see when something like this comes up in India.