For any company and new venture, success is a combination of a various factors including choosing the right target market with the right product at the right time. At the center of these factors is the ability for their relationship with each other to produce a profitable and successful revenue model.

A perfect storm of factors has not occurred for the prominent social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace. LinkedIn stands as a Web 2.0 company that breaks the model of unprofitable social networking ventures. At the heart of the company is an unorthodox, Oxford-educated entrepreneur. His strong mind for the finance and quick-decisions has created a network of users connected by means of business commonality.

A number of factors of have served to lay a foundation to LinkedIn’s success in a tulmultuous economic environment, including:

• User Base:Nothing speaks greater volumes about the future of a new ventures success then the user base. In LinkedIn’s case, more then 53% of users are in jobs where they earn more than 100k.What does this mean? It means it is an advertiser’s dream: a user base with a disposable income (forgot about those poor college kids on Facebook).
• Working Revenue Model: It has become a common thought that online advertising has yet to see the fruits of its labor. In order for many online ventures to succeed, there needs to be various channels of revenue. Fortunately for LinkedIn, the premium service is a subscription fee that works. Moreover, as noted above, there is a right demographic for such a service.
• Finance Savvy: As one great rap song goes, my minds on my money and my money is on my mind. For LinkedIn, the founding entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, he has a mind for venture capital, angel investing, and using it to leverage his company.

LinkedIn stands as a formidable business venture which has done what other social networks are failing to do: Be Profitable.

“Life” merely opposite to the lyrics from the band group, Blink 182, young entrepreneurs have found their niche in internet entrepreneurship. Instead of studying for a chemistry exam or playing Halo 2 in college, these students devoted their time and effort in creating a new face to the Net. These ambitious workers have revolutionized the world by “playing the trends” of today, and updating the world with what we know today as the Internet. Here are some of our young geniuses that started their websites with a book called HTML for Dummies.

Mark Zuckerberg,  Age 24

Founder of Facebook

-Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, started his business at age 20. He launched the popular website from his dorm room in Harvard. He is now the world’s youngest self-made billionaire to have the fifth most trafficked site in the United States. This FB CEO wanted “people to behave better” on the Internet and seek better options when on the Internet. There is not much here to be said about Mr. Zuckerberg, because if you are not one of the 80 million users on Facebook, then you are out of the “loop”.

David Karp, Age 22

Founder of Tumblr

-When Tokyo programmers and executives found out that David Karp was only 17 years old, they were embarrassed to know that they have been calling a kid in New York at 4 A.M. to solve their problems. This young 22-year-old founded Tumblr, a blogger website that uses quick, mixed-media posts. Although the site does not compare to the 80 million users on Facebook, the numbers for Tumblr is growing by 15 percent each month. Comparing to Facebook, the website is more attractive when you first sign in, and it gives people more ease and control. So at the end of the day, instead of looking at pictures that other people took of you at parties and reading pointless profiles, Tumblr incites people of more meaningful and more connected content and information about people’s lives.

Matt Mullenweg, Age 24

Founder of WordPress

-So what am I using to type this blog? “Oh yeah, it’s WordPress!” WordPress is a blogging tool that a young 19-year-old man developed while majoring in jazz saxophone in high school. This savvy entrepreneur has developed something so intricate, but easy to use by users and businesses. The community blogging website created by Matt Mullenweg, was launched in 2003 and has been a phenomenon ever since. Mr. Mullenweg’s determination for creating an expensive project has been well received. He started with a b2/cafelog blogging software, then developed a hub called Ping-O-Matic. He recently quit working for CNET to pursue WordPress. This ambitious man has created his way to the top and has made something that is personal and business oriented.

There are many other early CEO’s, such as Blake Ross, creator of Firefox, and Dwight Lee, of Table Xchange CTO, who have gained success. We all know and use these websites because it is our culture today. There are billions upon billions of Internet users today, and it doesn’t take a “kid” to understand that a business is well made through the Web. All it takes is some insight, ambition, and creativity to make something that is successive and applicable. I hope this blog, as a young entrepreneur and internet user, can jump start you to a new business that is tangible through the internet world.

Recently my mom asked me “whats this linked In thing??” While at a function for work she was talking to a collegue of her’s who wondered if she was linked In. My mom is definitely not the first person you would go to if you wanted to know what is new with the internet. Unfortunately there are many people like her out there who dont know much about LinkedIn.

Linked In helps people all over the world get and stay connected to others doing things just like them. With Linked In professionals can:

• link you with qualified professionals and experts
• connect with people you know as well as people they know
• gain new insight from discussions with like minded professionals in private group settings
• post and distribute job listings to find the best talent for your business

In times like these when employment becomes scarse, Linked In is the answer to our success. This site has the power to bring us closer to the people we know and the things we love to do.

If you need a job or you’re just trying to find someone to replace that worthless employee, LinkedIn.com is probably the place to start. LinkedIn is an online community similar to facebook but with a professional emphasis.

With LinkedIn, you can browse through potential employers or employees within a fixed industry. After a quick profile setup, you can begin to hunt for jobs in any region of the country. This is certainly a tool that will be widely utilized by Facebook users as they approach the job market.

With online communities becoming all the rage, it isn’t really a surprise that LinkedIn is becoming quite popular. It’s definitely the place to be if you find yourself jobless at thirty-five living in your aunt’s basement.

Jim Halpert: I’m just saying that you can’t be sure you’re not the culprit.
Dwight Schrute:That’s ridiculous; I would know if I was the culprit.
Jim Halpert: Marijuana is a memory loss drug, so maybe you just don’t remember.
Dwight Schrute: I would remember.
Jim Halpert: [pretending to be serious] Now, how could you if it just erased your memory?
Dwight Schrute: That’s not how it works!
Jim Halpert: Now, how do you know how it works?
Dwight Schrute: Knock it off! Okay, I’m interviewing you.
Jim Halpert: No! That’s not what you said, you said that *I* would be conducting the interview when I walked in here! Now, exactly how much pot did you smoke?

While this isn’t a typical office conversation, we’d expect nothing less from Jim Halpert’s and Dwight Schrute’s from NBC’s, “The Office“.  How could we forget the scene where Jim held up the picture of marijuana and began interviewing Dwight instead of being the one interviewed.  Brilliant.

We laugh at the scene (not just because Jim’s so hilarious) but because it’s not an everyday occurance we see in the workplace.  Typically, the interviewee  doesn’t become the interviewer.

But the Internet has made business anything BUT typical.  Job networking sites such as LinkedIn, have turned the tables by allowing prospective employees to, in a way, interview a company before getting hired.  Employees can scope out their potential boss’s profile, check out the company’s website, and find a ton of information they otherwise wouldn’t have access to before social networking sites.

Before considering a job, put yourself in your boss’s position and do a little research of your own.  Save yourself some time and find out if you’d be a good match for the company based on their company or LinkedIn profiles before you apply for a job.  Just remember that regardless of where you work, drug tests are pretty standard procedures when drugs are found on copmany property; you may have to provide a urine sample…