The company would not disclose the valuation it received in the funding round, but Chief Executive Andrew Fisher told Reuters that it was in the “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
LinkedIn, Groupon, Shazam — it has to make you wonder if the Internet bubble is back and when it will burst.
Shazam raises $32 million to expand music, TV services | Reuters
Out of all of these types of companies, I was surprised to find out that Groupon is in such bad shape. They must have tons of money coming in from all the deals they sell, yet they are seemingly broke and it looks like the money generated from their IPO is mostly being used to pay back previous investors. Insane.
As for Shazam and LinkedIn… WTF. How do these sites intend to make money? I still can’t believe LinkedIn went public. It’s such a useless site. People post their resumes on it… and… ??? Bubble indeed.
Can’t really add anything to that. Groupon surprised me too.
I’ve found LinkedIn slightly more useful than the major job-search services, if only to have a central point of reference that has a colleague-networking capability. I’ve never been tempted to upgrade to their paid service, however. Don’t know how solvent they are.
The bubble is indeed back.
Why so negative?
Groupon seems to have mgmt issues, but you can’t deny it’s popularity with vendors and consumers. If you don’t see the potential in LinkedIn then look at Facebook and it’s targeted advertising. And Shazam? Its iPhone app features every time someone writes an article on ‘essential iOS’ apps. Do they take a cut from song purchases made after a Shazam search? Big bucks there.
I don’t see the similarity between Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook is a place for people to connect to their friends, post inane status updates, crappy photos, event invites, and play dumb online games (yes, I hate FB but I see why it appeals to people). LinkedIn has what, exactly?
And I like Groupon, don’t get me wrong. My point is that these sites don’t do a whole lot but they are on the stock market and are valued at billions of dollars. It’s all fluff and speculation. They aren’t like Apple. They don’t make real products. Is there no barrier of entry to the stock market any more?
What LinkedIn has is professional contacts. If you build out your profile to 100% and get a sufficient number of contacts, it just blows the hell out of “job listing” sites currently — you not only have your resume, you have your references immeditely on display, a way to find direct contacts at companies you’re interested in, and a much better-targeted set of job listings. While I think LinkedIn was highly overpriced by the stock market, I’d suggest there’s a great deal of value there if they can figure out how to leverage it.