Reid Hoffman, founder of business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn, says that the massive amounts of social data available on the Internet will change the business world by allowing for the development of products that yield analytics from user relationships and identities.
A video interview with Hoffman, discussing how new products will be created from social data, is featured on IdeasProject, a website developed by Nokia. IdeasProject is an online “information space” that provides a new way to interact with thought leaders and their big ideas about the future of connected communications. For more on Hoffman’s big idea, visit: http://www.ideasproject.com/idea_person.webui?id=4101
“Once you have all these piles of data, people will build products out of the synthesis of this information,” explains Hoffman. “I think the Web 2.0 platform concerning actual identities and relationships is really just at the beginning stages of its growth–we’re not close to even the midpoint of this development.”
“As the founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman redefined online professional networking, making a seminal contribution to the rise of social media,” said Valerie Buckingham, Director of Technology Marketing, Nokia. “Now Hoffman is once again setting his sites on the future, exploring how companies will use the growing base of online social networking information as a foundation for business innovation.”
Over the next month, editors from the IdeasProject are featuring their favorite ideas as submitted by the public and sending a Nokia N95 to the ‘Big Thinker’ who contributed. Share and submit your ‘Big Idea’ with the world by visiting http://master.ideasproject.com/userideasubmit.webui
About Reid Hoffman:
The founding CEO of Internet-based professional network service LinkedIn and now its Chairman and President, Hoffman has been called the ‘most connected man in Silicon Valley.’ He has personally mentored many of the Web 2.0 CEOs and has given valuable advice to many Silicon Valley VCs, as well as to the United States military. Credited with inventing the term, ‘Second Generation Web Entrepreneurs,’ he is director of such social network enterprises as Mozilla, Vendio, Six Apart, Kiva.org, Grassroots Enterprises, and Tagged. He is also an investor in Facebook, IronPort, Flickr, Digg, Technorati, Dopplr, Ping.fm, Nanosolar, Care.com, Knewton, Kongregate, and several other firms. As Executive Vice President of PayPal, Reid was instrumental to the acquisition by eBay and was responsible for partnerships with Intuit, Visa, MasterCard and Wells Fargo. Reid graduated with distinction from Stanford University with a BS in Symbolic Systems and from Oxford University with a Master’s degree in philosophy and a Marshall scholarship.
About IdeasProject:
IdeasProject, a project of Nokia hosted at www.ideasproject.com, brings together the most visionary and influential “big thinkers” to contemplate the big ideas that matter most to the future of communications. It is a new kind of conversation platform aimed at uncovering the connections between these thought leaders and their disruptive ideas. Explore the IdeasProject website, subscribe to its RSS feed, join its Twitter feed (IdeasProject), and come back often to learn about great new big ideas as they break.
About Nokia:
Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. We make a wide range of mobile devices with services and software that enable people to experience music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games, business mobility and more. Developing and growing our offering of consumer Internet services, as well as our enterprise solutions and software, is a key area of focus. We also provide equipment, solutions and services for communications networks through Nokia Siemens Networks.
