LinkedIn
Summary
Professional network with content publishing and promotion features through organic posts and advertising.
Parent organisation: Microsoft
Type of organisation: Publicly-listed company (or group)
Market share: Market dominance
Pricing: Paid solutions for advertising, recruitment and sales at a range of price points.
Factors driving pricing: Additional features
Skills needed to set-up: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Skills needed to use: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Requires audience sign-in to use: Yes, sign-in compulsory
Parent organisation: Microsoft
Type of organisation: Publicly-listed company (or group)
Market share: Market dominance
Pricing: Paid solutions for advertising, recruitment and sales at a range of price points.
Factors driving pricing: Additional features
Skills needed to set-up: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Skills needed to use: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Requires audience sign-in to use: Yes, sign-in compulsory
Pros
Open Source alternatives available
Releases new features regularly
Clear data policies
Allows data export
Allows data deletion
Has accessibility statement
Shares diversity data
Cons
Newsworthy business problems - Microsoft’s LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles, LinkedIn accused of hosting spy profiles with AI-generated photos
Newsworthy technical issues - LinkedIn experiences nearly an hour of service issues, LinkedIn fixed a flaw that let someone post a job opening for Google’s CEO position
Full Product Data Collection
Data collected January-February 2020
| Product name | |
| Product URL | https://www.linkedin.com/ |
| Parent organisation | Microsoft |
| Workflow category | Audience engagement & monetisation |
| Date product founded | 2003 |
| Product description | Professional network with content publishing and promotion features through organic posts and advertising. |
| What type of company or organisation is the product owned by? | Publicly-listed company (or group) |
| Is the company profit-making? | Yes, profitable |
| How is this product funded? | Advertising, Subscriptions |
| What market share does the tool have? | Market dominance |
| Is there an Open Source alternative in this product space? | Yes. Vutuv |
| When did the company last release new features? | December 2019: New admin controls for groups. |
| Have they shared details of the product roadmap? | No |
| Is there talk of the product raising further investment? | No |
| Is there talk of the product being acquired? | No |
| Have there been any newsworthy business issues or challenges in the last 12 months? | Yes. Microsoft’s LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles, LinkedIn accused of hosting spy profiles with AI-generated photos |
| Is there a pricing model listed on the website? | Yes |
| How clear & transparent is this pricing model? | Partly: some pricing listed; must speak to salesperson to confirm |
| What is the range of prices offered? | Paid solutions for advertising, recruitment and sales at a range of price points. |
| What factors drive higher pricing? | Additional features |
| What skills are needed to get this tool set up & usable? | Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it) |
| What skills are needed to USE this tool day-to-day? | Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it) |
| Does this tool use proprietary file formats for saving documents & outputs? | Cannot tell |
| Is the product reliant on 3rd-party APIs or interoperability to function? | No |
| Have there been any newsworthy technical issues in the last 3 years? | Yes. LinkedIn experiences nearly an hour of service issues, LinkedIn fixed a flaw that let someone post a job opening for Google’s CEO position |
| How clear is the Terms of Service for users (i.e. publishing customers)? | Technical, legalistic TOS |
| Does the product have a data collection & usage policy on its website? (Can be a GDPR statement)? | Yes, comprehensive. |
| Is their data policy “GDPR everywhere”? | Yes, GDPR compliant globally |
| Does the product require your audience to sign-in to use it? | Yes, sign-in compulsory |
| IF SIGN IN REQUIRED: Does audience sign-in use 3rd party platforms? | No 3rd party auth, just a user account |
| Does the public product website mention how to export or transfer your data to another service? | Yes: Audience can data export, Yes: Export publisher metadata, Yes: Export/transfer publisher content |
| Does the public product website mention how to delete your data? | Yes: for both publisher and audience data |
| Have there been any newsworthy security breaches with this product in the last 3 years? | No |
| Does the company have an accessibility statement on its website? | Yes |
| Does the company release information on the diversity of the workforce? | Yes |