So, LinkedIn has been valued at $1 billion and there are questions being raised about it. I think it is quite a fair valuation, in fact, I think it is a bit on the lower side, especially when you compare it to Micorsoft's crazy $15 billion valuation of Facebook and the reasons are as below.

1) The most important asset any online operation has is data and how clean that data is (of spam, spammers and user details). Linkedin pretty much has the purest piece on that count available anywhere on the internet. Almost nobody puts 'Timbuktu' as their location on LinkedIn. They also have pretty accurate data about companies, their size and also the segments the companies are involved in.

2) Community: This is perhaps the least appreciated facet of LinkedIn. They may not have the volume of Yahoo! answers, but the quality and value of answers that are found in LinkedIn is worth a lot.

3) Last one is a no-brainer: They've been profitable for a while now.

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