May 20, 2011

Playing Musical Chairs With LinkedIn

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Ryan Chittum highlights an odd warning from LinkedIn management in a recent SEC filing:

It also warned investors, in its recent filing, that it expected its revenue growth to slow as costs increased. It said it did not expect to be profitable in 2011.

Huh? When costs increase your profitability might suffer, but there’s no reason that rising costs should affect your sales figures. This really makes no sense. But perhaps it explains why the same folks who blew up the housing bubble are madly blowing up a LinkedIn bubble right now. They know it’s all rubbish, but they’re just hoping to get out before the music stops, leaving suckers like you and me holding the bag. It worked pretty well before, after all.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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