• San Francisco Chronicle , Monday, November 24, 2008 11:46 AM

The San Francisco Chronicle sits down with LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye to discuss the professional social network's fortunes in 2008. At last count, LinkedIn was the fourth largest social networking site, behind MySpace, Facebook and Classmates.com. It is also the fourth fastest growing social network, according to the Chronicle report, behind Twitter, Tagged.com and Ning, with membership of 30 million. The private company is expected to rake in $100 million in ad revenue in 2008, up from $10 million at the end of 2006. In June, LinkedIn raised new capital valuing the firm at $1 billion.

"What's most gratifying is seeing the success that people are having on the network," Nye says in a lengthy interview. "There are just amazing stories about people making money, finding opportunities, getting advice, avoiding disasters from reference checking, reconnecting with important people in their lives, getting introductions, getting access."

Meanwhile, Nye announced that LinkedIn raised yet another round of venture capital financing, following the round in June valuing the company at $1 billion. In total for the year, LinkedIn has raised $75.7 million. Nye claims that the company's financial position is strong from having raised this money. "We actually never touched the series C money and then we went and raised more money," he said. "We also have a very strong revenue stream. Our revenues this year are up well over 100% over last year." Lastly, Nye pointed out that a professional network like LinkedIn's becomes much more important in a recessionary period than people realize.

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