LinkedIn - Two Years later

it was about two years ago, I read about LinkedIn and decided to sign up for the service which is known as a "social network". Most people refer to this network as "7 degrees of separation" - meaning we all live in the small world and are interconnected.

I am now connected to about five hundred people directly which gives me access to about 250,000 to my contacts' "direct contacts" and over 3 million of contacts to levels away from me or on linkedin what is shown as third level contacts.

I have always approached my time on LinkedIn strategically from the start. One of my goals was to build contacts and relationships with senior executives and company founders in silicon valley involved with "eWarrior" products and services such as blogging, social networks, crm, and podcasting. I also wanted to re-establish my contacts in both traditional media at companies such as HBO, MTV and others where I had worked in the past and with new areas of digital media in this case happening in New York City.

In addition, I set out to find people with specific skill sets in branding and marketing who could help me. In addition, I have a goal to connect with some of the top bloggers to share ideas and learn their "secrets" for attaining high visibility.

This journey has allowed me to meet and connect with people at Sirius Radio, Lime.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, MyBlogLog, and with award winning business plan gurus and founders of www.innersell.com and www.equipmentpipeline.com.

Throughout the rest of this year, I intend to blog more frequently on subjects around the usage of LinkedIn and also to profile some of the interesting people who I met along the way and those that have transformed themselves by joining.

LinkedIn is now becoming competitive for job seekers who want to find recruiters and companies to work for. It is a much stronger model I find than posting blind resumes at Monster.com or Careerbuilder. You can actually see the background of people working at the companies you want to pursue and can invite them to make contact.

I will also be discussing a new powerful feature called LinkedIn Answers which has allowed attraction of some very smart people to provide me with answers and resources for my business and career plans.

DailyCandy

Business week just featured and article about the concept of media company's buying up websites and editorial content. Robert Pittman and their private equity firm have invested in an eNewsletter/website called www.dailycandy.com. There are specific on-line editions in 10 cities from New York, LA, Miami and next is Atlanta.

This eNewsletter and website allow for new trends in fashion, restaurants, entertainment to be marketed to a very valued target audience, mostly women 18-34 with income and spending power.

Business weeks says that this webzine may be worth as much as $100 million dollars.

The trick to the valuation is to have a very professional staff and approach including a professional editorial team and advertising sales team. The rate card for advertising in Daily Candy goes from a few thousand dollars per ad to the thirty thousand plus per city edition. DailyCandy claims more than one million subscribers.