“LinkedIn Answers” unlocks the world’s best source of business knowledge: trusted professionals

LinkedIn Launches First-of-Its-Kind Service to Give and Receive Expert Business Advice

Palo Alto, CA — January 16, 2007 — LinkedIn, the world’s premiere business network, today launched LinkedIn Answers (www.linkedin.com/answers), a first-of-its-kind answers service that leverages the power of the user’s trusted professional network to receive business-related advice. LinkedIn Answers allows members to ask their business-related questions, and receive answers from their personal networks and the hundreds of thousands of experts in the LinkedIn network as a whole. The service gives the site’s 9 million users a quick and reliable way to get industry specific answers to business questions and to build upon their professional reputation by responding to questions relevant to their expertise.

“Asking people you know for business advice is the most common use of your professional network,” said Keith Rabois, vice president of business and corporate development at LinkedIn. “LinkedIn Answers allows users to gain insight and knowledge from people you trust and tap into a powerful network of thousands of experts in almost every field.”

The professional context of LinkedIn Answers encourages high quality, focused business content. Questions and answers are tied to professional profiles and the relationships between askers and experts, rather than anonymous usernames on other answer networks, enabling more credible responses. Questions can be targeted to specific members of one’s network, as well as opening it up to the entire LinkedIn network of more than 9 million professionals from around the world, representing 130 industries. The service is free and currently allows users to ask ten questions a month.

By providing information seekers with valuable content, industry experts benefit from responding to business-related questions with quality answers. Experts receive an expertise credentials for every best answer they provide – this becomes part of their LinkedIn profile, informing other users that they are a proven expert on that topic. For those consistently able to provide expert answers, LinkedIn will promote their expertise to other users, providing an opportunity for consultants, contractors and other service provider to build social capital and market their services to professionals whose questions they answer.

About LinkedIn
LinkedIn takes your personal business network online, giving you access to people, jobs and opportunities like never before. Built upon trusted connections and relationships, LinkedIn has established the world’s largest and most powerful business network. There are currently over nine million professionals on LinkedIn, representing all five hundred of the Fortune 500 companies, as well as a wide range of household names in technology, financial services, media, consumer packaged goods, entertainment, fashion, and numerous other industries. LinkedIn has over four million members in North America, more than three million in Europe, and a million-plus in Asia.