The ‘French LinkedIn’ business social network Viadeo has landed a Series D $32 million funding round split between the French Sovereign Fund, Allianz, Jefferies, Middle Eastern Funds and existing investors. The new investment will apparently allow Viadeo to accelerate its growth in Europe and China with Tianji its local brand, as well as other key [...]
Bloody hell, I’m finally part of bloody LinkedIn
This week I officially deleted the Facebook account for this (highly successful and influential etc) blog and decided to take the professional social network LinkedIn seriously. I’ve never liked LinkedIn, for some reason it reminds of me of a criminal record and unsuccessful job interviews so I have always treated it with contempt. I don’t [...]
Why Klout is a flawed model
In the 80s and early 90s, journalists on pop magazines (myself included) were driven by who was going to be attaining what position on next week’s charts. We would have an idea as the midweek positions came in. The current positions and the future positions helped us think about which pop stars to put on [...]
2011 – the year that social networks changed my life… again
Two more hours to go and then the screens in my life will flicker and I will pull the plug on them. No more laptops in bed, no more smartphone tomfoolery and hopefully not even Absolutely Fabulous on the telly. Furthermore no logging on to Twitter, Google +, Linkedin, Facebook and all those pesky networks [...]
LinkedIn rival Viadeo bags Dutch start-up Soocial
Business social network Viadeo has acquired Dutch start-up Soocial as ‘the French LinkedIn’ fattens its business for a potential IPO. According to the company, Soocial’s contact management and universal contact synchronisation will improve user experience on Viadeo’s network and allow members to sync their contacts across more than 500 platforms, messaging services and devices, including [...]
Six easy steps to set up a business – Part One
Many years ago I came back to the UK after a long time on the road to a Thatcherite revolution where the markets had been unleashed and poor little wannabe Commies such as I were yesterday’s news. It was a nightmare. Mammon ruled OK and the country’s assets were being sold off to investors. What [...]
Business social networks in China up by 500% in 2013?
While LinkedIn sits comfortably on its pile of money after this year’s IPO, other companies in the space are challenging its hegemony by targeting markets where LinkedIn is weak. One such company is Viadeo, sometimes referred to as the ‘French LinkedIn’. It announced at today’s TechCrunch Disrupt in Beijing that it now has 40 million [...]
Facebook foreplay leads not to satisfactory climax
Facebook could be confused with the manual that comes with a new mobile/car/robot. There’s so much it can do but most people are so happy that the bloody thing works they never look under the SIM/bonnet/metal testicles. Believe me, it’s better that way. Over the past 12 months I’ve spent more time with Facebook than [...]
Monty’s Social Outlook – Issue 12
Sometimes it feels as if LinkedIn has been with us as long as the internet itself but hasn’t evolved at all. Let’s just call it Social Networking 0.0. I appreciate that it may be much more than an allowance of reasonably dressed job-seekers flapping their apocryphal CVs in front of a reasonably interested audience, but [...]
