Nasdaq Fights Back In Social-Media Listings Fray With NYSE!

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Nasdaq OMX Group (NDAQ) is rediscovering its sweet spot, landing three big technology-related listings in recent days as the exchange operator fights to reclaim ground lost to arch rival NYSE Euronext (NYX).

Discount website Groupon Inc., game developer Zynga Inc. and planned Expedia (EXPE) spin-off TripAdvisor Inc. all have chosen in the last two weeks to list shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market, handing the electronic marketplace some big wins -- after some major losses -- in the closely watched social-media sector.

Battles for these listings have included some of the hardest fought between the exchanges to date and give Nasdaq some breathing room against the Big Board, which earlier this year lured networking site LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD), internet radio company Pandora Media Inc. (P) and Chinese social networking site Renren Inc. (RENN). Nasdaq won the listing of real estate site Zillow Inc. (Z) and on Monday was picked by Jive Software Inc., which filed plans to go public in August.

Both NYSE and Nasdaq have revved up efforts to lure web- and mobile-based businesses this year as they position for the next round of social media flotations, which could include Angie's List, LivingSocial, Twitter and, the crown jewel, Facebook Inc.

"There's a momentum associated with social media companies, and there's a compounding effect for the exchange," said Jason Frankl, senior managing director and head of the listing advisory services group at FTI Consulting. "You don't just get the notoriety and the listing fees. You get data fees, a piece of the transaction fees. Your business model is dependent on first getting the listing and then the revenues."

The courtship of Groupon, initiated last spring, drew the chief executives of both exchange groups to the daily deals website's home base of Chicago. NYSE's Duncan Niederauer and Nasdaq OMX's Bob Greifeld both personally pitched their markets in June, according to people familiar with the matter.

The exchange operators outlined a slew of promotions and cobranding with other companies listed on their markets. Nasdaq secured victory by agreeing to raise visibility of Groupon's discount offers across a range of media, including the 72-foot billboard on its MarketSite in New York's Times Square, according to people familiar with the matter.

Nasdaq is seeking to bounce back after watching the Big Board outpace it in initial public offerings and listings transfers over the past two years.

Since January 2010, the NYSE and its Amex platform have landed nearly 130 IPOs worth $57 billion, according to Dealogic data, not counting special categories like real-estate investment trusts or closed-end funds. The comparable Nasdaq figures are nearly 110 flotations worth about $15 billion. Nasdaq also had 21 "best effort" deals with proceeds of $1 billion.

Meanwhile, NYSE has come out ahead in the battle for companies that are already listed. Level 3 Communications Inc. (LVLT) and Imax Corp. (IMAX) are two of nine listings to transfer away from Nasdaq to the NYSE this year, versus Nasdaq's win of one company from the Amex and another that spun off from NYSE-listed Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC).

2010 also leaned to NYSE, following a 2009 when Nasdaq cleaned up, grabbing telecom behemoth Vodafone Group PLC (VOD) and taking more NYSE listings than it lost.

"We're going to continue to be very aggressive and we're going to put up wins. We're not going to win every single deal," said Scott Cutler, NYSE Euronext executive vice president. "The market for IPOs is [more than] Groupon and Zynga and two other social media deals."
Neither company was about to predict that they're ready to land Facebook, the most coveted of the social-media companies.

"At the end of the day, I'm sure Facebook will speak with both of us before they make a final decision," said Bob McCooey, senior vice president at Nasdaq OMX Corporate Client Group. "We certainly think that the continued success of Nasdaq in technology and specifically in the social media space helps."

Both companies are also looking to keep momentum as a new competitor, Kansas City-based BATS Global Markets, prepares to enter the fray in December with a low-cost offering that will offer free listings to companies that abandon their existing exchange for the six-year-old electronic platform.

-By Brendan Conway and Jacob Bunge

Mr. Markets Lovin LinkedIn!

Mr. Markets Lovin LinkedIn 

After volatile market conditions pushed down LinkedIn’s (NYSE:LNKD) stock to around $73 last week, unabated enthusiasm by shareholders could help boost the stock back to prior levels. While LinkedIn continues to dominate the online job search market over companies like Monster (NYSE:MWW), the debate continues on whether the company is correctly valued!

You be the judge;

Social Media connects the world on a global grid. Never before in our history have we as a collective people, been able to reach across the world to a new market to show our product or service. Virtual professionals are showing their talents, creating their own financial abundance, and shining despite the  media stating we are in a downward economic spiral. 


The economy is a state of mind which can be altered with effort. When we develop the mindset of success and abandon the mindset of scarcity or failure, our world will thrive. Social Media makes this happen. There is great power in the numbers of a billion voices saying “We are ready to take control of our future”.

LinkedIn Expands Into Japan!

LinkedIn Expands Into Japan 

Oct 20, 2011 00:30:11 (ET)






TOKYO -- LinkedIn, (LNKD, Trade ) the world's largest professional network with more than 120 million members worldwide, today announced that LinkedIn is now available in Japanese and has opened an office in Shibuya, Tokyo. The new Japan office will provide support for increasing awareness and adoption of LinkedIn in Japan, with a focus on member engagement and growth, product development, strategic partnerships and general operations.
LinkedIn is a professional network focused entirely on the professional workforce with members that span across more than 200 countries and territories (as of August 4, 2011). LinkedIn enables professionals to connect locally and globally to exchange knowledge, ideas and opportunities with a broader network of professionals around the world.

"Japan represents a huge opportunity for LinkedIn's growth and engagement and we are committed to delivering the best experience for Japanese professionals," said Arvind Rajan, managing director of APAC & Japan at LinkedIn. "With the tremendous talent pool and skill sets of Japanese professionals, LinkedIn will continue to foster a powerful and global exchange of information and opportunities that will help professionals around the world become more productive and successful at what they do every day. "

Features for Professionals

New LinkedIn members can access the site and create their LinkedIn Profile in Japanese by visiting http://jp.linkedin.com/ . New members will be able to build and manage their professional identity online by sharing their career updates and experiences, skills and capabilities, education and recommendations by their industry peers. A LinkedIn profile is also a great way for professionals to take control of the first impression people have when they search for a person online, as the LinkedIn profile likely surfaces at the top of any Internet search results. Creating a LinkedIn profile is free and available to all professionals.

By creating a LinkedIn profile and establishing a professional network, professionals will have direct access to communicate and collaborate with other LinkedIn members, such as colleagues, business partners, clients, and alumni to share important insights that will help them be more productive and successful in their jobs. Japanese members will also have access to products like Groups, where they can collaborate with industry peers in Japan and around the world to solve problems or share important best practices around topics and issues of interest.

Products such as the Homepage and LinkedIn Signal can also help professionals gather rich insights about what professionals are saying, commenting on, and sharing with their professional peers in real-time. Signal allows professionals to filter LinkedIn's member updates by using search facets, such as location, company, industry and more, in order to glean just the relevant pieces of information from a constant stream of updates.

Japanese professionals will also have the option to upgrade their free account to a premium account to leverage features, such as increased InMails, and better organization of important profiles and search functions.

Features for Companies

Japanese companies have many ways to promote, market and present their organizations to millions of LinkedIn members around the world. One of the easiest ways to do this is by creating a Company Page, which is being used by more than 2 million companies worldwide today. LinkedIn's Company Pages can be created and managed in Japanese, and with our new "status update" feature, companies now have the ability to have a direct dialogue with their followers to post updates on company news, new jobs, relevant industry articles, videos and more. More than 60 Japanese companies have already created a Company Page on LinkedIn.

Features for Students and New Professionals

Millions of students today are using LinkedIn around the world to build their professional identity and network, to help achieve their career goals by connecting with established professionals who can provide insights into relevant internship, job or business opportunities. Students can connect to fellow students to learn more about where they've landed jobs, reach out to alumni for advice and counsel, and leverage the networks of their parents, family, friends or mentors to get a head start on their career planning. Students can also gather important information about companies and industries using products like Groups, Signal and Company Pages to glean important information that can help them make better decisions about their career choices.

LinkedIn Announces Talent Pipeline

LinkedIn Announces Talent Pipeline: One Place for Recruiters to Grow, Track and Stay Connected With All Their Talent Leads 

Oct 18, 2011 12:00:10 (ET)





 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) -- LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network with more than 120 million members, today announced LinkedIn Talent Pipeline, a new solution for recruiters which will give them the ability to more easily manage all of their talent leads in one place, helping them recruit the best talent more quickly. The announcement was made onstage by LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner in front of more than 1,800 recruiting professionals at the company's Talent Connect customer event in Las Vegas, Nevada.
With the rise of social media, recruiters are dealing with an increase in online networks as sources of talent who may not be actively seeking a new job. This is in addition to more traditional sources such as personal referrals, conferences, job boards and company career sites. This shift toward recruiting 'passive' talent gives recruiters access to a much larger pool of potential candidates with the right skills and experience than if they relied on active candidates alone. Talent Pipeline will allow recruiters to keep track of all of these potential candidates in one place, even before they enter the formal application process.
Speaking on the announcement, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner commented, "Recruiters are actively looking for more talent from more sources and managing all their talent leads across multiple tools. With LinkedIn Talent Pipeline, we're extending our Recruiter platform and continuing our focus to connect talent with opportunity on a massive scale by providing a single place to manage and update these leads, wherever they are found."
Because most passive candidates have not formally applied for a job, they are not tracked in a company's Applicant Tracking System (ATS). As a result, many recruiters are simply tracking leads in their own spreadsheets - a tool designed for crunching numbers, not tracking, nurturing and collaborating on recruitment.
James Holincheck, Managing Vice President of Human Capital Management at Gartner, commented, "One of the most frequent things we hear from enterprises today is a desire to better manage the increasing number of talent sources. Recruiters know that passive candidates are an important source of talent and want better tools to capture this opportunity."
Today, companies that try to create a separate database for leads spend significant time and effort to implement a new system and process, only to find they haven't solved the problem of stale information. The moment someone changes a title, job or location, the original lead or resume is out-of-date and the database becomes less valuable. LinkedIn Talent Pipeline solves this problem:

--  All of their talent leads, at their fingertips, on the LinkedIn
      Recruiter platform. Recruiters can import leads and resumes found from
      other sources into Recruiter.  These records can be searched, tagged
      with additional information, and shared across the team just like any
      profile sourced on LinkedIn. With new tools for adding a lead's source
      and status, recruiters will be able to report on and improve the
      efficiency of their pipeline activities.
  --  Stale leads are transformed into up-to-date records with deeper insights
      by being connected to LinkedIn. When new leads are imported, they are
      connected to their LinkedIn profile, which members keep updating even
      when they aren't looking for a job. Recruiters are better positioned to
      evaluate and build relationships with leads, based on the insights
      provided by the LinkedIn profile, including shared connections, activity
      updates, recommendations and shared groups.
  --  Because it is LinkedIn, it is an easy extension of the sourcing that
      recruiting teams already do on the professional network today. More than
      75 of the Fortune 100 and another 6,000 companies use LinkedIn Hiring
      Solutions as a resource for finding, contacting, evaluating and staying
      in touch with leads, since they know most of their leads have profiles
      on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is working closely with a number of large recruiters to develop Talent Pipeline, including PepsiCo, Pfizer, Red Hat, First Citizens Bank and Netflix.
L.J. Brock, Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition & Infrastructure at Red Hat, the world's leading open source technology provider, commented, "Our talent acquisition strategy is based on building refined talent pools for the strategic roles essential to our business. Maintaining meaningful relationships with these candidates in a personalized but scalable manner is a priority for us. LinkedIn Talent Pipeline will allow us to do that more effectively than anything that exists today."
Available in the first half of 2012, the core functionality of Talent Pipeline will be included as part of LinkedIn Recruiter at no additional charge. A separate version of Talent Pipeline will be available for team members not using Recruiter.
Notes to editors
LinkedIn's Talent Connect customer event runs from the 17th -- 19th October in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company's flagship customer event attracts corporate recruitment professionals from around the world, and is the company's third such conference, following events in San Francisco and London. Speakers at this year's conference include senior talent leaders from BP, Deloitte, Microsoft, PepsiCo, American Express, HP, Intel, Pfizer, Red Hat, Sony, Zynga and many more.
LinkedIn's existing Recruiter solution makes it easy for recruiters to search the LinkedIn network, and is currently used by 75 of the Fortune 100.

LinkedIn Announces Webcast of Third Quarter 2011 Earnings

LinkedIn Announces Webcast of Third Quarter 2011 Earnings Conference Call







LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), the world's largest professional network on the Internet, today announced that it will host a conference call to discuss its third quarter 2011 financial results and business outlook on Thursday, November 3, 2011, at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time, following the release of the Company's quarterly financial results. Jeff Weiner, CEO and Steve Sordello, CFO will host the webcast.

The live webcast of the conference call will be available on the investor relations section of the LinkedIn website at http://investors.linkedin.com/. Following completion of the call, a recorded replay of the webcast will be available on the website. For those without access to the Internet, a replay of the call will be available beginning at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time on November 3, 2011 through November 10, 2011 at 9:00 p.m. Pacific Time. To listen to the telephone replay, call (855) 859-2056, access code 18194888.

LinkedIn Allows Companies to be More Social with Company Updates!

LinkedIn Allows Companies to be More Social with Company Updates

LinkedIn (NASDAQ:LNKD) continues to come up with simple yet effective ways to drive user engagement higher. With the latest addition of ‘company status updates’, the professional networking giant hopes to enhance a company’s page on LinkedIn by allowing updates. This is a nice move that allows the company to now communicate regularly to followers be they exiting employees, customers or just fans of the company. In other words it can now participate in the social media side of corporate networking and follows in the footsteps of the popularity of its groups function, which allows users to add updates and engage in dialogue.

Glamour stocks to beat a gloomy market!

Glamour stocks to beat a gloomy market 


By Shawn Langlois 








SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Americans are fascinated by celebrities, and not just the ones nipping and tucking their way down Hollywood Boulevard. Such a star culture is alive and well on Wall Street too.
Look no further than "glamour" stocks, the ones that investors just can't seem to get enough of. These equities are popular, expensive and widely held. They're also seen as having strong growth potential, valuations be damned.


"Investors aren't afraid to own most of them, even with sky-high valuations," she added. "Well-known brands are still cashing in, regardless of the global economic uncertainty."

She pointed out names like Priceline.com Inc., Starbucks Corp. and Whole Foods Market Inc., along with hot IPO companies like LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD, Trade )

Perhaps the appetite for at least some of these names signals an investing public ready to push ahead, regardless of dreary market prospects. But the lofty valuations might not keep buyers from hopping aboard glamour picks, according to Partha Mohanram, an accounting professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.

                                                           

"I don't see these relatively high prices as warnings signs," he said. "Apple may go up by a factor of two, while Research In Motion Ltd., gets cut in half, but there's a reason for that. Don't be obsessed with where the price is. You need to ask which ones deserve the hype."