LinkedIn today announced that the professional social network has 50 million users worldwide. Perhaps more impressive is its claim that it is growing by “roughly one new member per second.”
The company says that when it launched back in 2003, it took 477 days to reach its first million member milestone. The 50th million came much easier, however, in jus 12 days.
“While 50 million is an important milestone, we’re even more excited about how our members are using the site,” says LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner. “Around the globe, people turn to LinkedIn to create and manage their professional identities online. They reconnect with former colleagues and develop new relationships, enabling them to create and collaborate with a network of trusted individuals. Every day professionals use LinkedIn to define themselves —and their businesses — to the world.”
LinkedIn says that about half of its total membership is international. It was launched as a global network to begin with. Europe makes up 11 million users, and India is the network’s fastest-growing country with 3 million users itself. The Netherlands has the highest rate of adoption per capita outside of the United States, at 30% according to Weiner.
“We’re proud to have reached this latest milestone, and we very much appreciate our members’ use of LinkedIn,” he says. “However, in the context of our mission – to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful – we’re just getting started.”
Earlier this month, LinkedIn launched the profile organizer, aimed at making it easier to save profiles and organize them into folders. You can also use it to take notes on contacts.
One unfortunate thing for LinkedIn is that the ever-growing networks of Facebook and Twitter seem to be invading its turf to some extent. More and more people are using those two to find jobs. That said, LinkedIn is clearly still doing quite well for itself, gaining a member a second and all.
