LinkedIn Laps Facebook As Acceptable Social Media Stock

It has been fascinating to watch the divergent evolutions of two social media companies since they launched their IPOs. While Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) continues to be sold at breakneck pace, LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE:LNKD) has been launching itself into the stratosphere, and there seems to be very little to hold it back.

That makes this evenings’ quarterly earnings report all the more interesting. Can LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE:LNKD) continue its amazing momentum by exceeding even analysts’ lofty and optimistic projectsion, or will the stock face some of the same disappointment that Facebook and Zynga have encountered in recent weeks?

There certainly has been a lot more positive buzz about LinkedIn stock since it’s opening, no doubt. And really, it may come very well from one thing that LinkedIn Corporation has been able to do successfully, while Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has struggled mightily: monetization.

LinkedIn has been very successful of monetizing its fingerprint online and on mobile devices through two channels – subscription fees and advertising. That ability to monetize its presence has kept revenue coming into the company, and thus has kept the valuation of the company moving higher and higher. The question at this point might be, where is the saturation point? When will LinkedIn reach a point where growth will have to slow down? At this point, it seems hard to say. And that actually might be a good thing for Facebook, which is spending a lot of money on research and development to try to find an effective way to monetize its ubiquity – and it seems that if LinkedIn has a very high ceiling in this area, it would make sense that Facebook could too, if it can only figure itself out.

And now, some news out that might further support LinkedIn’s continued growth – a report that says that LinkedIn wil be connected seamlessly with Outlook in the new Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) Office 2013 that is due out soon. The new application would allow Outlook users to access LinkedIn from Outlook without an additional software application or plug-in. A user can just log in to Outlook with LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE:LNKD) credentials, and the suer would then have access to contacts, profiles and photos directly into their Outlook. And if the new MS Office takes off with some of the hype, there may be no indication of how far LinkedIn will go as the acceptable social media stock for investors.

It definitely seems to be a stock worth linking to a portfolio.