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LinkedIn: Crossing the 5 Million Mark in India

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DQI Bureau
New Update

With the registered user base crossing the five million mark, India is

now the fastest growing region for href="http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/industrymarket/focus/2009/109110602.asp">LinkedIn,

says href="http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/industrymarket/people/2009/109120901.asp">Hari

V Krishnan, country manager LinkedIn India.  






As the worlds largest professional network with more than 60 million
members worldwide, LinkedIn has seen unprecedented growth in the Indian

market since establishing its office in India in December 2009.






The member growth in India has been strong over the last three months
with a growing number of members engaging through LinkedIn Groups and

LinkedIn Polls helping members to connect and collaborate across

geographies. As Krishnan rightly points out - our focus for India is

to increase the usage of products, applications and hiring solutions

thereby connecting all of Indias professionals to help them be more

successful and productive.






In your pocket


With the focus on increasing awareness and user engagement, the focus
of LinkedIns mobile strategy is to make the platform available to

users where they work instead of logging on to the site.  






LinkedIn recently announced the launch of the LinkedIn application for
BlackBerry href="http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/dqtop20_09/IndustryAnalyses/2009/109081328.asp">smartphones

at LinkedIn.com/blackberry and on BlackBerry App World. The

application complements LinkedIns other mobile offerings for the href="http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/top_stories/2010/110010402.asp">iPhone

and Palm Pre giving the members more choices on how to use LinkedIn

away from their offices and computers.






The new LinkedIn application features native integration with the
Blackberry meaning the application has been embedded in the phone

itself allowing members to access LinkedIn within their Blackberry

email, calendar and contacts. For instance the address book stores all

relevant LinkedIn information (current title, small picture etc) of the

addressee resulting in better preparation for any meeting by accessing

the LinkedIn profile of the participants, adds Krishnan.  






Some of the key functions of the new application include enabling users
to manage their LinkedIn inboxes on the go; staying connected to the

professional conversation; adding new connections away from the

computer; sending invites to new connections to build networks; and

lastly receiving recommendations of who they may want to add to their

professional networks.






The application is available globally in English, Spanish, French,
German, Japanese, and Chinese languages. In addition, the Blackberry

application has also been integrated with MS-Outlook and IBM Lotus

Notes (the two most popular mail clients) so the users using these mail

clients can get relevant LinkedIn information.






Going local


Our localization strategy is two-fold; showcase local relevance and
Indian success stories and secondly show LinkedIn as a platform wherein

members use it as a professional productivity tool and a repository for

professional opinion, says Krishnan.






While the primary source of revenue for LinkedIn India remains the
advertisements placed in the site; LinkedIn as a platform for offering

hiring solutions to the recruiters and prospective recruits is fast

gaining prominence among users.






LinkedIn India has also entered in partnership with the Network 18
Group (CNBC TV 18) and is jointly conducting polls on various current

topics. In addition LinkedIns open API platform has enabled developers

from India and across the world to custom-build integrations with

LinkedIn.com to provide members an engaged professional href="http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/enterprise/datatech/2010/110020601.asp">networking

experience. The companys integration with Twitter has also

provided further impetus in driving member engagement.






Krishnan however discounts any plans to go regional since no tangible
input devices like keyboards exist in regional languages, besides the

professional language of choice is English in India and elsewhere in

the world. 

























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