Microsoft buys LinkedIn - And gets a $26.2bn bargain...

If you've been on social media at all, you'll have noticed the news that Microsoft have agreed to acquire LinkedIn, the darling of the professional social media scene. What captured the imagination most, was the figure - $26.2bn, purchased in cold hard cash. While we'd love the image of this being sent in a massive wheel-barrow, we've got the SoDash technical pros to do some rapid number crunching. We can therefore tell you that if paid in $100 bills, this will fill 250 standard shipping pallets, with 1 ton of Benjamin's on each one. Or if you prefer, 23 20ft shipping containers. Cash, truly is king.

But, since that's a grossly inefficient way to pay a bill, let's focus on something more important – the image of what this actually buys Microsoft.

Mobile Strength

Though for what it's worth, 's not talk about the Windows phone for a second. Or rather, if we must, let's also remember that they were the first to try and take a tablet to the mainstream. History shows they were ahead of their time. While we don't anticipate the second coming of Cortana-powered mobile, LinkedIn have had 49% Year on Year growth in their mobile arm, and 105 million unique visitors per month. It's no secret that mobile is the future – and this helps reposition Microsoft as relevant once again.

A Fast Buck

Making money out of a social network isn't an easy job. In fact, it's one of the hardest things you can do – people don't like paying for things, or seeing adverts. How you manage that represents a major challenge, but LinkedIn achieved it to make around $3bn in revenue last year. LinkedIn exists in a tricky world, whereby it's very much the social network for professionals, but doesn't really appeal to the wider world. Microsoft have the capacity to tie it in with their existing office and enterprise solutions, perhaps offering job postings and advertising packages based on LinkedIn data.

The World's Greatest Mailing List

$26.2bn is a lot of money for an e-mail. However, consider the number of professionals with e-mails, phone numbers, industries, data, and everything in between. Very quickly, this can lead to the most aggressively and accurately targeted advertising campaigns imaginable – niche adverts on a hyper-targeted level, delivered through the platform – for free. Anyone who has ever crossed LinkedIn's palm with silver for the pleasure of sending In-Mails will know how effective it can be. Imagine having the e-mail address of key leaders, influencers and pros in any global field. Suddenly, it's a very good investment.

What do you think of Microsoft's big move? Considering this is more than 3x what they paid for Skype back in 2011, can we expect this to be the tip of a wider acquisition iceberg? We're excited to see what comes next. As we always say, in social media, no two days are ever the same. And it turns out, no two platforms are either.

Curious to learn more about us, and what we do? Visit www.sodash.com and www.sogrow.co.uk, to learn more.

All images sourced from Pixabay