LinkedIn won’t be mistaken for Facebook anytime soon, but the professional social network crossed the 100 million member mark March 22 and is adding 1 million users per week.
LinkedIn launched in May 2003, which means it took almost eight years to hit the century mark in users. Contrast that with Facebook, which hit the 100 million member mark in August 2008, or four and a half years after it launched in February 2004. The leading social network now has more than 600 million users.
Facebook’s counterpart for the workforce has expanded its offerings from helping users network and find jobs to helping recruiters groom new hires and entrepreneurs start new businesses.
While becoming a LinkedIn member is free, the company makes money from advertising, premium subscriptions and professional recruiting services.
Under CEO Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission in January. The company launched LinkedIn Today, which funnels relevant news users are sharing via LinkedIn and Twitter.
Now the company is celebrating the century mark, culling all sorts of factoids and stats about members and their profiles (anonymously, of course) via this infographic.
For example, LinkedIn calculated over 1.3 billion connections between members; 79+ million job transitions/changes tracked; and the fact that all of the Fortune 500 companies have executives on LinkedIn.
The latter stat speaks to the Website’s reputation among working professionals, setting it apart from the often fun, frivolous connections users share on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social sites.
Also interesting to note that while 44 million of LinkedIn’s users are based in the United States, its fastest-growing countries in 2010 were Brazil, Mexico, India and France. For example, the network sported a 428 percent year-over-year membership growth rate in Brazil.
This is all part of the company’s massive international expansion plan, according to Weiner, who wrote in a blog post:
“Our site is currently used in over 200 countries and territories around the world, with more than half of our users coming from outside of the U.S. You can now connect just as readily with someone in Sao Paulo or Singapore as you can with your colleagues in San Francisco, London or New York.”