LinkedIn amps up content, acquires newsreader Pulse
LinkedIn is continuing its effort to add content, and today it's doing that by buying a startup that aggregates news from a variety of sources.
LinkedIn has been adding all sorts of content as a way to get people to spend more time on the site.
Today, the company confirmed that it's acquiring Pulse, a newsreader app that aggregates news and social-media feeds. Pulse boasts more than 20 million users who are spread across more than 190 countries and read 10 million stories a day.
LinkedIn reportedly paid $90 million. News that an deal was in the works was reported last month.
LinkedIn has been amping up its efforts to produce a reliable stream of content for its users -- and keep them coming back to the site each day for a fix of news.
In addition to launching a news page, LinkedIn started partnering with industry leaders, who write exclusive content for their followers within the network.
In announcing today's deal, Deep Nishar, LinkedIn senior vice president of product and user experience, said that adding Pulse will bolster that effort:
We believe LinkedIn can be the definitive professional publishing platform - where all professionals come to consume content and where publishers come to share their content. Millions of professionals are already starting their day on LinkedIn to glean the professional insights and knowledge they need to make them great at their jobs. We believe we can help all professionals make smarter and more informed business decisions leveraging all the great business knowledge flowing through LinkedIn in the form of news, Influencer posts, industry updates, discussions, comments and more.
Pulse, which began in 2010 as a class project at Stanford University, wrote its own blog post about the deal.
We never imagined what the future would hold. We were motivated by our own frustrations with mobile news reading: we wanted an effortless experience, with clean design and easy access to all of our favorite sources. As our time in the Launchpad class continued, and as we spent day after day talking to our local community, we realized that this was a shared desire--and we sought to meet their need.