NET - Linkedin and Viaduc focus on international growth

I found an interesting post on Bob Stumpel's blog (everything 2.0) about the growth strategy of Linkedin and Viaduc: it looks like those two (very different!) networks both plan to have a strong international growth in 2007.

Linkedin
In our last couple of emails, Konstantin Guericke (Linkedin co-founder) confirmed that he would concentrate on growing its number of subscribers in Germay in 2006. Today, Lars hinrichs (openBC Founder) wrote an article "Germany is hot".

Nb: Germany is known as an excellent market for subscribers. A lot of people are ready to pay for extra services.

Viaduc
Bob says that Viaduc will soon rebrand to Viadeo, be available in 6 languages, and partner with a Chinese social network, Tianji.

Viaduc founders have done well in France. The reason for their success? 1) They were well-k-nown, 2) they had a lot of connections, 3) they benefit from a very good coverage in the medias, 4) France was almost a virgin market at the time: there was no major competitor with an interface in French (even though other networks are in French such as openBC or 6nergies).

I can see them doing well in French speaking countries next to France, but all over the world?

openBC / XING
openBC is German, and they have been multilingual right from the beginning: they already have the experience at "country level", they rely on proactive and visible country managers...  They have a clear competitive advantage in that space.
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Technorati: businessnetworking, socialnetworking, linkedin, viaduc, openBC