• by Shankar Gupta , March 7, 2006

Business social networking site LinkedIn will add several new features to its service, including a people search engine that will allow users to search for LinkedIn members from the front page, as part of a push to double its membership by the end of this year.

The search engine will be available to any visitor, but those who want additional information on the professionals listed in the search results will have to sign up for a free LinkedIn account. With this strategy, LinkedIn hopes to grow its membership to 10 million this year, up from 5 million at present.

In addition to the search engine, LinkedIn is also providing several other features for its non-subscription users, including automatic reports when contacts change their profile information, a job matchmaking feature, which informs users about jobs offered by their people in their contact networks, and search engine optimization services for pickup by major Internet search engines.

LinkedIn also offers premium services to paying subscribers, including upgraded profiles, headhunting services, special pages for organizations or companies, and the ability to contact more members more frequently.

Company co-founder Konstantin Guericke said the firm makes most of its profits from its subscription members, with on-site advertising providing a smaller stream. He added that the company reached profitability this month.