LinkedIn now sports 500 million members

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
published

LinkedIn has now crossed a pretty significant milestone: 500 million members. The company, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2016, took to a new blog post (opens in new tab) to talk about the achievement, along with some stats that put the professional social network's massive numbers into perspective.

According to LinkedIn, those 500 million users are spread out across 200 countries, with United Arab Emirates, Netherlands, Singapore, the UK, and Denmark representing the top 5 most connected countries. From LinkedIn:

This community represents 10+ million active jobs, access to 9+ million companies, and with more than 100,000 articles published every week it's helping you stay informed on the news and views impacting your professional world. A professional community of this size has never existed until now.

Impressively, LinkedIn counted 467 million users among its ranks in October, meaning it gained 33 million members in just 6 months. And though its focus may be different, LinkedIn is the latest in a handful of social networks to cross the half billion mark. Just in December, Instagram, for example, announced it now has 600 million monthly active users.

For more, you can check out LinkedIn's full blog post (opens in new tab).

Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

15 Comments
  • But still no UWP app, I have uninstalled Win 8 app which is not working properly.
  • I figured this would be he first comment and I agree with you haha
  • I was looking for the app in the Windows store the other day since I'm starting my job search soon, but of course it's not there.
  • I've bookmarked the website. :/
  • Yep, another Microsoft fail.
  • Totally....waste of 26 billion that could have been put to good use working on mobile space....instead Nutella bought business facebook wth it.   Useless peice of **** website.  
  • And SURPRISE of all surprises... ...MSFT is killing LinkedIn too! While LinkedIn is a professional tool, all of the data is provided by consumers.  And we all know that MSFT doesn't work with consumers very well.  Here are some examples of how MSFT is "Microsofting" this product that has to interface with consumer: -They have taken away advanced search for the consumer at the free level.  This is what allows you to try and find people who you might want to network with or do some research on prior to entering into any kind of business relationship.  They have moved this to a $60/month paid account.  Now if you are looking for a position or out of work, I'm guessing that you aren't going to be wanting to pay that kind of cash to be able to find the people that you want to. -Now I'm sure that someone will say, "But you can do boolean searches!"  Yep, you can.  But about all you can do is AND and OR.  No parenthesis, brackets or saving your searches.  Leave it to MSFT to write a new boolean parser that is crippled beyond belief.  And of course leave it to MSFT to think that most people even know how to do boolean searches.  I can't tell you how many people I've had to explain this too because they aren't writing code. -There is this whole concept of Responsive websites - a website will respond to the type of device that is displaying the content and format it for your screen.  Google even gives your website a higher ranking if it a website is developed to be responsive.  Very smart on their part because it plays into pushing people from desktop viewing to smartphone so really pushing folks from Windows to Android.  Anyway, MSFT must not understand responsive websites because they redeveloped the LinkedIn interface so that the desktop looks like a mobile site!  What is MSFT thinking?!?!  That people will all of the sudden use non-mobile Windows devices to view LinkedIn because they know that the odds of someone looking at LinkedIn on a mobile Windows device are almost non-existent?!?! Go onto the LinkedIn forums and see what folks are saying.  Many people are very upset and believe that there is almost no value to LinkedIn now.  MSFT has just set up someone like Google to morph Google Groups into a LinkedIn competitor. There must be a competition within MSFT to see who can burn the most cash on an acquisition and ruining it.  Someone must have gotten their feelings hurt when MSFT decided to burn $7.1B on Nokia so they convinced executive leadership within MSFT to spend $26.2B on LinkedIn.  What both people got correct as to spend the money on a consumer focused company because they knew that MSFT can't pull off a consumer focused product.  I would be surprised if MSFT didn't throw in with MySpace or Friendster to help bring those two down.
  • Take a sit and watch the show LaViKe. Movie is not over yet
  • Olabode Ogunbodede1 , Maybe I'm wrong.  I don't think so.  We can all prognosticate.  So what do you think will happen?  Easy to not say anything but "watch the show" and "Movie is not over yet." People have reached out to the LinkedIn team to address all of what I posted and more.  The reaction seems to be, "we need to make our money back so we have to charge to get some kind of return".  I get that.  But I would think that the pricepoint would be closer to an XBOX Live subscription versus twelve times that amount.  People are upset and MSFT has fertilized the ground for competition to come in. Also, refute any of the examples that I posted or provide some other response besides "wait and see".  I'm posting what is happening and the reality of the situation. Look, I don't like what is happening but I've been burned by MSFT with Windows Home Server, Windows Media Center, Band 1, Band 2, Lumia 830 that was crippled out of the box and a number of other MSFT consumer products that have died on the vine.  I'm writing this on a Windows powered desktop and I have a Windows 10 tablet and a Surface Pro 4.  Because I've invested in WMC, I have 2 XBOX360's and an XBOX ONE.  I don't consider the Surface Pro 4 to be a consumer device because I use it for my business because I couldn't afford or justify to purchase it for personal use.  I currently have a 950XL as my phone which I'm hoping doesn't go on the fritz because I will have almost no options to replace it.  As a consumer, I do not think that Microsoft has any intention of understanding what it is that would help me.  I see tons of things that I like but I honestly belive that MSFT has ED, no staying power, when it comes to the consumer. So, please do tell me/us something Oh Wise Olabode Ogunbodede1.  Refute anything that I've said.  Or just post another snarky comment.
  • Is there evidence that this is Microsoft themselves doing this or were they going to go down this path in the first place regardless of who bought LinkedIn? That's an important distinction.
  • Bing, my search engine of choice, announces the acquisition on 13 June 2016.  So about 10 months ago. I'm sure that the databases behind LinkedIn are comlicated given that if you want to try and retain the data that was in LinkedIn, you have to ask LinkedIn to send it to you and it comes in 10-15+ Excel spreadsheets.  However, since the new interface doesn't give you anything but the ability to not be confused when you move from the mobile to desktop experience, my guess would be that this was MSFT directed. A consumer focused company would have had some vision on how to improve LinkedIn to upsell people to get them to pay.  A non-consumer focused company takes away functionality and then overcharges the consumer.  In the end, driving them to a competitor.
  • Really disappointed with the changes to the interface the past few months
  • Agreed. News feed has always been a waste of time but now even profiles and skills are buried behind clicks so that linkedin can measure metrics. lame.
  • So much revenue and you still dont make an official app for your own ecosystem #Irony
  • Wohoo! Finally a bit of mention of little 5,5 million populated Denmark. *is proud*