LinkedIn Hooks Up with CNBC

Cable news outlet CNBC is partnering with professional social networking service LinkedIn to add collaboration and community functionality to its site.

Cable news network CNBC has entered into a new partnership with the social networking service LinkedIn to add collaboration and community features to the CNBC.com Web site. Under the deal, users will be able to share CNBC articles and content with contacts via LinkedIn, and users will be able to find out which members of their social networks connect with companies they’re reading about.

Unlike social networking sites like FaceBook an MySpace, LinkedIn focuses on professional and business connections rather than sharing tastes in music and media and grabbing the latest “profile bling.” CNBC no doubt hopes adding LinkedIn functionality will make their online efforts “stickier” to businesspeople and professionals…which in turn drives traffic to their site and increases their appeal to advertisers. CNBC also plans to develop community-generated content for broadcast on CNBC programs, including survey results and on-air Q&A sessions.

The CNBC deal follows an advertising deal with LinkedIn and The New York Times last July, and an alliance with BusinessWeek set up in late 2007.

LinkedIn claims about 27 million members. Financial terms of its arrangement with CNBC were not disclosed.