LinkedIn Acquires SlideShare

May 4, 2012

News that LinkedIn acquired SlideShare for over $118 million broke this week (along with a SlideShare presentation explaining the news) — an acquisition that gives LinkedIn access to a lot of content created, shared, and discussed by its target audience of professionals. In March 2012, the SlideShare website received over 29 million unique visitors, which means it’s one of the most trafficked websites for professionals.

Over 7.4 million presentations have been uploaded to SlideShare since it debuted in 2005, and since then, those presentations have been embedded in over 1.4 million unique domains. All of that content represents opportunities for LinkedIn to connect with a larger audience and get access to valuable information about its users.

In a press release, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner explained, “Presentations are one of the main ways in which professionals capture and share their experiences and knowledge, which in turn helps shape their professional identity. These presentations also enable professionals to discover new connections and gain the insights they need to become more productive and successful in their careers, aligning perfectly with LinkedIn’s mission and helping us deliver even more value for our members. We’re very excited to welcome the SlideShare team to LinkedIn.”

Information is valuable these days, and the SlideShare acquisition certainly gives LinkedIn information. The acquisition represents what appears to be a turning point for the direction of LinkedIn as a company. Undoubtedly, the LinkedIn strategic direction goes far beyond the SlideShare acquisition. Simon Sharwood of The Register speculates, “The [acquisition] could mean ‘this is our cloud storage play’ or ‘our members were spending a fair bit of time using Google Docs and Office 365 and we wanted that time-on-site’.”

One thing is certain, what started out as a simple social networking destination for professionals might just be turning into something far more comprehensive. Let’s just hope that “something” really is useful.

Image: LinkedIn

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Susan Gunelius

President & CEO at KeySplash Creative, Inc.

Susan Gunelius is the author of multiple marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and blogging books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, a leading blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com, a featured writer for Forbes.com, and the Guide to Blogging for About.com. Additionally, her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, FoxBusiness.com, WashingtonPost.com, TheStreet.com, SmartMoney.com, TodayShow.com, BusinessWeek.com, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Small Business, and more. She has nearly 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Susan also appears at in-person and virtual events where she speaks about marketing, branding, social media, and more (visit www.SusanGunelius.com for more information). You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.