LinkedIn hires to replace Bite void

by David Quainton, PR Week UK 08-Nov-07, 12:03

LinkedIn, the social networking site for businesses, has moved swiftly to replace dropped agency Bite Communications with Chameleon PR.

LinkedIn ditched Bite after the agency was signed up by Facebook (PRWeek, 19 October), leading to an apparent conflict of interest.

Chameleon – also on the original Facebook and LinkedIn shortlists – has now taken over the LinkedIn account, which is believed to worth more than £100,000.

LinkedIn is one of the 160 most-viewed sites on the internet, according to traffic-ranking website Alexa.com. But the social networking firm is a long way behind rivals MySpace and Facebook, both in the top ten.

To hit back at its main rivals, LinkedIn this week joined Google and other social networking sites in introducing a common set of standards to allow software developers to write cross-network programs.

According to The New York Times, the sites in the alliance ‘have a combined 100 million users’.