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LinkedIn is acquiring SlideShare, and it's not hard to see why.
A widget displaying a professional's recent presentations is one of the most common additions to a LinkedIn profile, breaking up the gray of all that resume fodder. Many of the hottest up-and-coming social software properties on the Web, like Pinterest and Instagram (now part of Facebook), are about sharing pictures that reflect a person's personality. SlideShare is one of the best ways of sharing your professional personality.
The acquisition, announced Thursday, is valued at approximately $118.75 million and is expected to close during the second quarter of 2012. Founded in 2006, SlideShare is best known for converting PowerPoint documents into a format that can be shared through slideshare.com or embedded in a blog or social media feed. SlideShare can also be used to share documents and videos. SlideShare added an online meeting application, Zipcast, last year.
Competitors include SlideRocket, a tool for giving live presentations that can include Internet content, which can also be used to display those presentations for later playback, and ClearSlide, a sales-oriented tool for online presentations.
SlideShare CEO Rashmi Sinha wrote in a blog post that the company grew mostly by word of mouth and viral adoption. "The only business deal I aggressively pursued was when I heard that there might be a LinkedIn developer platform in the works. I activated every connection through advisers, investors, and friends, determined that SlideShare be part of LinkedIn's platform," he wrote. "Since then, we have collaborated with LinkedIn on many more projects and have deepened our relationship, and it's been clear how great the fit is. Today's news is a natural culmination of this partnership."
SlideShare will continue to operate as a separate service, but you can be sure LinkedIn will also tap the developer team for its expertise in the visual display of information.
"This deal enables professionals to discover people through content, and content through people," Deep Nishar, SVP, products and user experience at LinkedIn, wrote in reply. "We're excited to figure out the best ways our offerings will work together to help professionals around the world be more productive and successful."
LinkedIn acquires SlideShare
Follow David F. Carr on Twitter @davidfcarr. The BrainYard is @thebyard and facebook.com/thebyard
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