LinkedIn Sets Up Its First Outpost in Mainland Europe

The social networking space seems pretty locked-in. Facebook easily dominates and its once potential rivals, notably MySpace, are losing ground. Its stronghold is the US, but it's doing well in almost any market it's in. The market for a mainstream social network is pretty much dead at this point, but smart players like LinkedIn are cornering other more niche markets, not without a fair share of success. The professional-oriented social network is seeing solid growth and has now opened its second office in Europe an the first one in Continental Europe, hoping to increase its influence in the region.

"Last week, Hari Krishnan, our country manager based in Mumbai, launched our India operations with the objective to connect all of India’s professionals. Here in Central Europe, the bar is just as high," Eugenie van Wiechen, LinkedIn's country manager in the Netherlands, writes.

"By creating programs and partnerships to raise awareness and engagement with LinkedIn in the Netherlands, I believe we can help Dutch professionals succeed in the new decade and beyond and put them on a path to business and career opportunities that otherwise may pass them by," she adds.

LinkedIn, based in Moutain View, California, Google's home turf as well, set up its first European outpost a couple of years ago in the UK. The social network is making inroads on the old continent, though it's certainly encountering more resistance from the natives than back at home in the US.

A couple of strong players are dominating their local markets, Xing in Germany springs to mind, but LinkedIn, the largest professional social network in the world hopes it can do in this market what Facebook did overall. Why the Netherlands then? Well, it seems that the country is home to one of the biggest and most engaged user base and has the highest number of LinkedIn users per capita in the world after the US. Apparently, over 1 million of the site's 55 million users are from the country.