LinkedIn buys SlideShare - a boost for CI researchers
Jinfo Blog

By Penny Crossland

Abstract

LinkedIn has recently purchased Talent Pipeline and now SlideShare. SlideShare is an invaluable tool for recruiters, business development managers and competitive intelligence researchers as it contains  PowerPoint presentations, product plans and hard-to-find facts and insights.

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PowerPoint presentations may be the bane of corporate executives’ lives. However there is no doubt that for recruiters, business development managers and competitive intelligence (CI) researchers, the content available on SlideShare can be invaluable. This was confirmed to me last week at a CI webinar hosted by TFPL Connect and presented by Cascade Insights.

The presenters billed SlideShare as the “YouTube of PowerPoint”, with uploaded presentations now 7.5 million, and a valuable tool for CI researchers. Content frequently includes product development plans or employee data at offices or plants; all valuable nuggets of information for business researchers. In addition, content is not confined to drab bullet-pointed information; video is an increasingly common format on SlideShare.

Occasionally hard-to-find facts and insights are made available on SlideShare content, often I suspect in error, such as data from market research reports, which are normally only obtainable at a high price or presentations from partner conferences.

So it was with interest that I learned a little after the TFPL webinar that LinkedIn had bought SlideShare for around $119 million. This comes hot on the heels of its acquisition of Talent Pipeline – reported by Tim Buckley Owen here – and provides another boost for recruiters and head hunters wanting to find industry experts for corporate positions.

The accompanying press release, no doubt with a nod to recruiters, stated that presentations “shape professionals’ identities”. The 29 million unique visitors to the SlideShare site in March, as recorded by Comscore, will also have been an attraction to LinkedIn and will ultimately boost its already impressive membership, which at the latest count stands at 161 million members.

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