Sell-side analysts, meanwhile, expect LinkedIn to generate earnings growth near 60% a year over the next half-decade, according to market averages. Facebook’s aggregate forecast rests much lower, near 30% a year through 2018.
4. Reach
In terms of a profile-maintaining user base, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) takes the cake with 1 billion strong to LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD)’s 225 million users. When we consider the total reach of Jeff Weiner and Dan Roth’s budding professional publishing platform, LinkedIn’s footprint is far larger. The site receives over 130 million unique visitors each month per COMSCORE, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR).
As a news aggregator (user and company-generated posts) and an original content producer (Influencers), LinkedIn is the largest news site in the world. eBizMBA estimates the second largest to be Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) News with 110 million uniques, followed by Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX)’s CNN (74m), Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and NBCUniversal’s MSNBC (73m), and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Google News (65m).
Sure, LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD) established their user profile system first, but that’s precisely why it is in the driver’s seat to rule news in the Web 3.0 world. Most of its media competitors, aside from content aggregator Reddit, are attempting to add profiles in after the fact.
Can you ever imagine a day where CNN’s profile numbers outrank LinkedIn’s? We thought not, but you get our point. We’d rather invest in the company that is positioning itself to be a leader in next-gen content delivery with a large user base already in existence.
5. Smart money support
With that being said, many members of the hedge fund industry appear to be in agreement with this outlook.
Of the 500-plus elite hedge fund managers we track at Insider Monkey, 40 were long LinkedIn at the end of the last filing period with the SEC. This total remains unchanged from the end of 2012, which is a fact we cannot say about Facebook. The number of top hedge funds invested in the social network has fallen by 35% since last winter, and stands at 49 as of the latest data.
In this case, it looks it’d be smartest to stick with momentum over the aggregate.
A couple big-time investors who hold LinkedIn in their equity portfolios include Jim Simons and Philippe Laffont; George Soros also built a small position in his last 13F filing.
Let’s be honest
To be frank, long-term, game-changing investment opportunities don’t come around like this too often. It’s tempting to buy into the Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) hype now that its IPO barrier has been broken, but the combination of LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD)’s promising future with its solid foundation is too beautiful to pass up.
When Web 3.0 rolls around several years from now, don’t look back and kick yourself for not taking a stake in its most dominant publishing platform. It’s just that simple.
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