Linked In has some of the smartest investors around
(one of the angel investors is also an investor in Facebook). These
investors have deep pockets and they are almost certainly following the
model of building both scale and deep end user value before attempting
too much monetization.

I have seen signs that they are looking at deepening their service
value, specifically by becoming a network to find small service
providers. With reputation ratings, that has big value. It has
reciprocity as there are times as a buyer when you really need a small,
specialist firm at short notice. So this is valuable to buyers as well...

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Linked In has some of the smartest investors around
(one of the angel investors is also an investor in Facebook). These
investors have deep pockets and they are almost certainly following the
model of building both scale and deep end user value before attempting
too much monetization.

I have seen signs that they are looking at deepening their service
value, specifically by becoming a network to find small service
providers. With reputation ratings, that has big value. It has
reciprocity as there are times as a buyer when you really need a small,
specialist firm at short notice. So this is valuable to buyers as well
as sellers. There are specialist networks doing this already, so
LinkedIn can do it at scale across multiple domains. That looks like a
winner.