LinkedIn to Buy Pulse Newsreader App for Over $50 Million

linkedin + pulse

LinkedIn will acquire Pulse, the popular newsreader app, in a deal worth a reported $50 to $100 million. linkedin + pulse The Pulse app, made by San Francisco-based Alphonso Labs, has 20 million users who read more than 10 million stories per day! Previously Alphonso Labs was able to raise about $10 million from venture capital firms like Redpoint Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Mayfield Fund, Lightspeed Investment Partners, New Enterprise Associates and Lerer Ventures.

AllThingsD reported that several companies were in the bidding to take over Pulse, with Microsoft and Yahoo engaged in talks, but LinkedIn being the final suitor. The Pulse app recently added functionality to include social and video feeds, and has become a popular alternative to social readers like Flipboard. Now LinkedIn could take advantage of Pulse’s apps and plugins to feature original content and blog posts from “influential thought leaders” like Richard Branson (a new follow feature on LinkedIn).

This appears another step in LinkedIn’s quest to become your source for news and aggregation (along with LinkedIn today). Some other major acquisitions of LinkedIn recently include SlideShare, Rapportive and CardMunch. LinkedIn currently has more than 200 million active users.

pulse newsreader image via appadvice
 
Are you using Pulse yet? How do you think this acquisition will improve LinkedIn’s core services?

Daniel Zeevi

By Daniel Zeevi

Daniel is a social network architect, web developer, infographic designer, writer, speaker and founder of DashBurst. Full-time futurist and part-time content curator, always on the hunt for disruptive new technology, creative art and web humor.

12 comments

  1. acquiring the well known app is a clever move. on the one hand linkedin reches an existing user community and on the other hand they get a mouthpiece to share news and thoughts…

    1. Well you have to consider that Pulse now represents 10% of LinkedIn’s current user base, albeit some overlap. Given how engaged readers are using that app, LI surely expects the extra traffic and leads to cover the costs and then some.

    2. it’s about getting the foot into a new door.
      a new target-group. 20 million users is about 10% of linkedin reach. lot of new users, lot of advertisings.

  2. I’ve always admired LinkedIn for being “outside” the more commercial sharing formats. With Pulse, I think it will make LinkedIn more generic and it might actually lose some of its impact and reputation.

  3. This acquisition confuses me a bit. I am unclear about the end game. Is it an effort to garner more page views, an effort to compete with the other SM sites, or is there some technology under the hood they desire?

  4. Trying to “fix something that isn’t broken” seems to be the trend these days… have a feeling that whatever LI is doing… it will work out just fine!

  5. If they do it right, the more “time” you spend in a store, the more you buy. I agree with Kevin though (see below) as I enjoy and treat LinkedIn differently.

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