LinkedIn goes public: What does this mean for IPOs?

(CBS/What's Trending) - Today marks an historical day, not just for LinkedIn, but for all social networking sites. It paves the way for other social platforms to see their potential for their IPO success in the future. According to Business Insider, LinkedIn's stock price skyrocketed from about $40 to almost $100 just today after the company announced they were going public.

Here's some questions you may have had about LinkedIn and the future of IPOs:

Q. Is Linked In the beginning of an IPO rush?

Answer: There has been very few tech IPO's in the past couple of years, and none in this price range.

You have to go back to MasterCard and Visa IPOs in 2006 and 2008, respectively, to get close to the offer price of LinkedIn. And, of course, they aren't tech companies.

A large percentage of the recent IPOs have share prices below their original offer price at this time.

It is a good sign that IPOs are being brought to the market again. It means that companies offering shares believe there are growth opportunities in the market place. The timing of IPOs is critical. No one wants to bring a company public only to have the share price drop due to weak market conditions. I believe this IPO means there is hope for future IPOs in the near term.

(source: http://www.123jump.com/ipo/ipo_recent/9/1/1/2011/)

Q. Is LinkedIn the harbinger of bubble 2.0?

Answer: Bubble is in the media again, this time around social networking companies. The LinkedIn IPO is the first of the larger social media firms to go public. It is an indication that others will follow (like Twitter and Facebook). Great interest will be paid to the results of this IPO in the coming weeks and months.

LinkedIn has just been anticipated greatly with much interest and demand for these shares.

A key question is what does the leadership of LinkedIn have planned for the IPO funding?

Q: The share price is dropping. How will this effect the company and public perception?

Answer: Certainly, this huge rise in the stock price on the first day of trading Linked In is an historical event and provides much conversation among investors and analysts.

There has been great anticipation about this IPO and further expectation about other IPO's in the future.

I intend to buy stock in LinkedIn after the hype dies down. I'm going to watch for a double bottom on the stock charts, probably several weeks from now, before I buy.

Q. How has LinkedIn changed the way companies do business?

Answer: I train thousands of people every week how to maximize business results from their LinkedIn profile. Like any other technology, if you don't know how to use all the "bells and whistles" on your machine, you are not getting all the benefits that are available to you.

I am passionate about LinkedIn because I know from experience what is available to and possible for businesses.

Compared to the ways businesses did their networking and promoting in the past, LinkedIn is more efficient and less expensive (it's a free social networking site).

The average household income of a LinkedIn user is $109,000 and most of these members are business decision makers.

LinkedIn has built a registered user base of over 100 million, up from just 32 million in 2008 and is growing at over one person per second.

And paying corporate customers have paid attention and they, to have grown even faster since 2008 to over 4.8 million. The growth of Corporate customers speaks for itself.

(source: businessinsider.com/should-i-buy-linked-ipo-2011)