LinkedIn targets 'lead elites'

While most foreign Internet giants stumbled in the Chinese market, the United States-based professional social networking company LinkedIn Corp is moving to become more localized in China.

LinkedIn, the world's largest online professional network with 277 million members globally, launched a Chinese-language website on Tuesday to offer more localized services.

its new website will be called Ling Ying (lead elites).

Derek Shen, LinkedIn's China president, wrote in a blog post that LinkedIn has created a joint venture with Sequoia China and China Broadband Capital to connect more than 140 million Chinese professionals.

LinkedIn owns 93 percent of the China joint venture, while the other two partners put in $5 million in cash for a 7 percent stake, according to a filing earlier this month with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

California-based LinkedIn announced recently it had about 50 million members in the Asia-Pacific region. China ranked as the third-largest market for LinkedIn in the region with 4 million members, behind India (about 24 million) and Australia (5 million). LinkedIn has had operations in China with an English-language site for more than a decade.

"LinkedIn is still at an initial stage of its development in China.We hope to localize and improve our products and services for Chinese professionals," Shen said.

"The chance for LinkedIn to 'win' in China is greater than 50 percent, because we have a local team, as well as support from the international platform," Shen added.

China has long been a market where foreign Internet giants rarely achieved successes. LinkedIn's social media peers such as Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc were blocked after they balked at government censorship rules.

Facebook hasn't built up operations in China beyond hiring contractors to help advertisers reach people outside the country, Bloomberg News quoted Debbie Frost, Facebook's spokeswoman, as saying.

Google ceased search tools in the Chinese mainland and redirects users to pages in Hong Kong.

"LinkedIn cannot avoid the same tricky political questions that were encountered by other foreign giants. The issue matters a lot because it determines whether LinkedIn can have legitimate status in China," said Xie Wen, a Chinese IT expert and former president of Yahoo China.

Jeff Weiner, chief executive officer of LinkedIn, confirmed on Tuesday that the company will adhere to China's censorship rules to maintain normal operations in the country.

To learn from previous global players' failures, Xie also pointed out that LinkedIn has to localize thoroughly. "LinkedIn cannot just copy the US model. If foreign high-level management does not know China issues, then just let the Chinese team handle the problems," he said.

In addition, LinkedIn should have enough patience and be willing to keep investing, because it takes time to grow a business, Xie said.

Dong Xu, a Beijing-based analyst, voiced pessimism about LinkedIn's future development in China. "First, Chinese users usually hesitate to pay websites for services, while LinkedIn collects good money from its members overseas," Dong said.

Meanwhile, China does not have a well-developed professional networking environment, she said.

"Chinese people do not separate their social networking activities into some for entertainment and some for professional development. Most of their professional social networking demands are still met offline," Dong said.

There are several existing competitors in China's professional networking market. Jamie Huckabay, chief executive officer of the Shanghai-based ushi.com, a networking system focusing on white-collar professionals, said that the market will benefit from LinkedIn's move in China.

"There are great opportunities in the market as more people find it important to network professionally and more companies use such network systems as agencies to locate the right talent.

"With more players in the market, such as LinkedIn, we actually have more partners to move the industry in the right direction," Huckabay said.