Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained?

 

Starter's Gun Or Firing Squad?

For the last week or so, there has been a lot of debate surrounding the acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft; not only are most outside analysts mystified as to exactly how the LinkedIn market segment can augment Microsoft's annual revenues (despite some confusing references to the "Microsoft Cloud Platform"), they are also stunned that Microsoft has declared that it will finance the acquisition with borrowed cash! Some firmly state that borrowing the money was a result of the fact that Microsoft doesn't really have the money itself; others surmise that financing a multi-billion-dollar acquisition with a loan is a strategy developed by the brain trust at Microsoft headquarters, who believe that (if it works) the deal will elevate Microsoft policy-makers from the status of clueless computer nerds to captains of the financial industry...& if it doesn't, they will still be clueless computer nerds. No worries...they believe.

Anyway, the step is not entirely official just yet; the deal is set to be finalized by the end of 2016...so both Microsoft & LinkedIn have approximately 6 months to either stand firm or retrace their steps. While some might be sorely tempted to start taking bets right now, it is still too early in the day to know with any degree of accuracy whether the acquisition announcement was made because the executives of the companies in question have made their decision or because they want to assess the public's response to this idea. After all, a sizeable portion of the international analyst community believes that Bayer was never serious about acquiring Monsanto & was simply giving Monsanto a hand in repairing its badly-damaged credibility, by pretending that the likes of Bayer consider almost-bankrupt companies like Monsanto a "catch".

But the point is that Microsoft has been making a lot of blunders lately; for instance, everyone thought that the clunky Windows XP was a giant step back from the much-snazzier Windows 98 SE - Microsoft personnel themselves proved that they shared that opinion by the number of XP patches they issued over the following years. When people became resigned to being stuck with XP, Windows 7 (complete with all its glorious errors) appeared like a bolt from the blue. The kinks in Windows 7 had barely been ironed out, when Windows 8 - which seems to be designed for artistically-inclined 10-year-olds - blew across the world with the suddenness of a typhoon. To be honest, most folk still haven't accepted this latest setback of an operating system, & Microsoft has already begun the digital version of blackmail by indirectly threatening to switch people's operating systems from 7 or 8 to 10 without their informed consent, simply by doing so remotely while the victim surfs the Web. Users can only hope that this foot-in-the-door marketing technique is discontinued once the end date arrives late next month.

So, the gazillion dollar question is, what is the likely effect of this planned acquisition on the LinkedIn member network? This question, which only Time can truly answer, consists of 3 components, which are as follows:

Posts & Groups Versus (Un)Lucky Number 10

I am a professional blog founder & administrator since over a year. To be honest, my viewership numbers are pathetic, but various online blogger bulletin boards explain the phenomenon as having something to do with some new algorithms that were introduced on to the Internet a few years ago that aim to keep bloggers' egos in check - especially the ones that prefer to write from their own unique perspective instead of toeing the company line. Those algorithms seem to have been universally adopted because not only are the stats unrealistically low on WordPress & Blogspot, even after amassing over 1,100 connections, my LinkedIn post numbers are lower than they were when I had barely a dozen connections. Apparently, either I switch to commenting on celebrity love affairs or live with glacial viewership numbers. Ordinarily, I'd break out the racy gossip with no regrets, but I kind of like my own stuff. Therefore, to paraphrase a line from the memorable film version of Miami Vice, "I don't audition for business, business auditions for me".

But Microsoft's increasingly-controlling approach over the last decade or so appears to qualify as cause for concern, when it comes to the free-range news supplied by LinkedIn members to LinkedIn's signature online newspaper "Pulse" & the delightfully-varied groups that are available for practically every topic under the sun. Will Microsoft issue orders that people who wish to discuss topics that don't qualify as subliminal advertising for Microsoft products & services be "discouraged" from sharing their views on Pulse? Will LinkedIn group members have to deal with pouting from other "members" if any one of them decides to spend time & effort on discussing more unique topics than Bing? LinkedIn has already begun becoming somewhat insular in that it has started showing signs that if content posted via its service is not run-of-the-mill, it doesn't matter if it adheres to the rules of social decency, it will still be subtly sidelined. Is this situation going to progress further if or when Microsoft officially takes over the reins of the company?

Which brings us to the most horrifying possibility of all: WILL MICROSOFT DECREE THAT LINKEDIN IS ONLY ACCESSIBLE TO PEOPLE WHO USE WINDOWS 10?! If so, the majority of the world's computer user population - especially competent, committed Asian professionals who have neither the time nor the inclination to switch their operating systems every other quarter - will have to humble themselves by waiting for the somewhat-anticipated Twitter character limit to be raised to 10,000 in order to communicate with one another...since - no offense - Facebook has been so reduced in reputation lately that most 30-something professionals consider it the place to go if you can't get laid without the help of a laptop & a snapshot of someone richer & better-looking than yourself.

Silver Lining

Anyway, to look on the bright side, the implementation of the 10,000 character limit on Twitter will allow users the option of making statements that don't sound like a drunken text to a childhood friend; in other words, somewhere in the mists of the future, Twitter posts might actually begin to make sense to somebody who doesn't live & breathe for the not-petty details of any single individual's daily routine. In addition, if the LinkedIn acquisition by Microsoft actually goes through, it might also mean that Tweeting will become more than what celebrity actors & actresses are expected to do during the promotion of a movie or TV show, what idle teenagers do when they feel that learning to write legibly is an obsolete concept & when elderly public servants suffering the effects of a mid-life crisis decide to sneak their views into people's knowledge without having to listen to the opinions those views inspired. So, the lesson learnt is that there is some good news even in bad news. Hopefully, people will get to discuss this ideology on LinkedIn Groups & Posts for many years to come.