Seasoned Silicon Valley entrepreneur Bill Nguyen is a colorful guy. Now he has a new company that is as colorful as he is.

It's called -- what else? -– Color. (Securing the domain, www.color.com, set the company back $350,000.)

Like ex-Apple employee Nguyen's custom-made cuff links of the original (and colorful) Apple logo, the company's name speaks to how people are likely to use its smartphone application, which allows you to instantly share photos, videos and comments with friends and strangers alike. (You can check out a demo here, and the app is available in the Apple App store.)

Nguyen, who describes himself as a recluse, says the service has already drawn him out of his shell.

He checks it dozens of times a day to find out what his wife, Amanda, a pastry chef, and his two young boys are doing, as well as to keep tabs on his co-workers and friends.

He works on his iPad or iPhone in a white porcelain bathtub in the window of his start-up's airy downtown Palo Alto headquarters -- to the amusement of passersby.

And he gets plenty of attention by padding around the office and town in an insulated sleeping bag suit that makes him look like a mash-up of Gumby and the Michelin Man.

Everything about Color's offices is designed to create a palpable sense of community and inclusion. Even people who don't work there will be allowed to loiter in a reception area where they can test drive the application. In the basement, kids can ride skateboards on a half-pipe or play with giant Legos. Tents with cots are set up for engineers to crash after late-night coding sessions.

The start-up and its concept already has its own gravitational pull in Silicon Valley, recruiting engineers and splicing DNA from top Silicon Valley companies such as Apple and Google. Color scooped up DJ Patil, LinkedIn's chief scientist, even as the Mountain View professional networking company is on the verge of an initial public offering.

Read more about Color here in our article about the company and how social networking is about to get even more social. You can read my colleague Jon Healey's take here.

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LinkedIn, in the first of what is likely to be a string of high-profile social networking initial public offerings in coming months, on Thursday unveiled a social news service for its more than 90 million registered members.

The Mountain View, Calif., company has been rolling out a number of social networking features to make its website a more popular destination. The latest is LinkedIn Today, which will basically be like Twitter for your professional network, compiling the top stories from your connections or industry.

LinkedIn users will also be able to look at what professionals in different industries are reading and share stories with their network. LinkedIn will send you a weekly e-mail of the top industry headlines across all of the industries you follow. You can read the press release here.

"When we make truly life-changing decisions, we don't use search, we rely on the people we trust," said Deep Nishar, LinkedIn's senior vice president of products and user experience.

Former LinkedIn employee and CrossLoop founder Mrinal Desai says the feature has a shot at becoming "the Wall Street Journal of social news." But it remains to be seen if having yet another service curate news will catch on with LinkedIn users.

At a press conference, LinkedIn's chief executive Jeff Weiner explained that his company is rolling out products aimed at "changing the way people work." LinkedIn wants to be considered the profile of record for professionals and it wants to be the place they go to get insights into their jobs and industry, he said.

LinkedIn, which is small compared with social networking juggernaut Facebook, is under pressure to show that it can engage its users. In its prospectus, the company warned that a "substantial majority" of its members don't visit the website on a monthly basis.

Nonethless, its stock has traded in private market transactions at price levels that would imply a valuation of $3 billion.

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After China blocked LinkedIn on Thursday, users can once again access the career-oriented social networking site.

The freeze lasted more than 24 hours, according to Bloomberg. Within the country, the “Great Firewall” has already shut down Twitter and Facebook use, sites that were recently instrumental in overthrowing governments in Egypt and Tunisia.

Chinese officials have clamped down on communication amid citizens’ calls for a similar “Jasmine Revolution.” Police presence has increased while some cellphone text messaging services have been disconnected.

"We are seeing indications that access to the LinkedIn service is being restored in China," said LinkedIn spokesman Hani Durzy in an e-mail. "We will continue to monitor the situation."

LinkedIn Corp., which has hundreds of millions of users in China, is fully integrated with Twitter, making it one of the only remaining portals through which users can access the micro-blogging service.

LinkedIn plans to raise as much as $175 million in an initial public offering.

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-- Tiffany Hsu [follow]

 Photo: Jin Lee / Bloomberg

Wael Ghonim, Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, is missing in Egypt as protests continue on for a seventh day, according to reports from multiple news sources.

Al Jazeera said in a blog post on its English website that it had been contacted by friends of Ghonim and that he has been missing "since last week. His wife is appealing for any information on his whereabouts. Ghonim was guest speaker at the Al Jazeera Forum for Online Journalism & Freedom of Opinion earlier this month."

On what appears to be Ghonim's Facebook page, it says he admires Egyptian opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei, who recently returned to Egypt to take part in the nationwide protests against the government of President Hosni Mubarak, who has been in power for more than 30 years.

Gohnim's page also lists Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs as people who inspire him.

According to Ghonim's LinkedIn page, he graduated from the American University in Cairo in 2007 with an MBA after getting a bachelor's degree from Cairo University in 2004. The page says he has been Google's marketing head since January 2010. It also lists him as being based in the United Arab Emirates.

On his Twitter account, @Gohnim, he posted messages that indicate active participation in protests in Egypt.

On Jan. 24, he wrote:

Despite all the warnings I got from my relative and friends, I'll be there on #Jan25 protests. Anyone going to be in Gam'et Dewal protest?

Tuesday, the first day of Egypt's protests, he tweeted:

Egypt after #Jan25 is no way going to be the same as Egypt before it. Today we proved so many points.

Later that day, he wrote:

Heading to Tahrir square now. Sleeping on the streets of Cairo, trying to feel the pain of millions of my fellow Egyptians. #Jan25

On Wednesday, referencing the Farmville game on Facebook, he said:

A government that is scared from #Facebook and #Twitter should govern a city in Farmville but not a country like #Egypt #Jan25

And on Thursday:

Pray for #Egypt. Very worried as it seems that government is planning a war crime tomorrow against people. We are all ready to die #Jan25

The last tweet sent from the @Gohnim account was from Thursday, in response to a Twitter user going by @SweetOwl, who asked:

@Ghonim how can you tweet when its blocked??

He responded:

@SweetOwl proxy servers

Google declined to confirm if Ghonim was in fact missing. A spokeswoman did say in an e-mail: "We care deeply about the safety of our employees, but to protect their privacy, we don't comment on the individually."

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Call it the $50-billion question: How much is Facebook worth?

No matter how many friends Facebook is making on Wall Street, plenty of investors don't think it's worth $50 billion. In fact, that recent valuation for the world's most popular social networking service is inflating concern of a bubble in the technology sector, according to a Bloomberg Global Poll, a quarterly survey of 1,000 Bloomberg customers who are investors, traders or analysts.

Sixty-nine percent of investors surveyed said Facebook was overvalued after Goldman Sachs invested $450 million and Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies invested $50 million in a deal that pegged the Palo Alto, Calif., company's value at $50 billion.

Ten percent of investors surveyed said the valuation was on the money, and 4% said Facebook was worth even more.

Even analysts who are bullish on Facebook say the company has provided too little financial information and does not have a long enough track record to determine a valuation. Facebook, which has more than 600 million users, is valued at about 25 times its 2010 revenue.

Many investors who have been clamoring for Facebook shares are nervous about missing out on the next Google. They might regret passing -- at least initially -- on Google, which had a blockbuster initial public offering in August 2004. Facebook shares have been a hot commodity on private market exchanges.

The Bloomberg poll may be one of the first signals of unease among investors about the soaring valuations of privately held Internet companies with more than half of the respondents saying Facebook's rapidly ascending valuation could point to a bubble in the market.

LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals, said Thursday that it planned to raise as much as $175 million in an initial public offering. The company is valued at $2.5 billion on online marketing trading exchange SharesPost. You can find its prospectus here.

Facebook had revenue of $1.2 billion in the first nine months of 2010, according to information Goldman Sachs provided to prospective investors. Goldman Sachs originally had offered Facebook shares to its U.S. clients, but it called that off because of concerns that the offering would violate U.S. securities laws.

Investors’ excitement about Facebook seems to have cooled a bit in recent days. According to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, Facebook shares were trading at $28.26 a week ago, giving the company an implied valuation of $70 billion. In this week’s auction on online private exchange SecondMarket, the share price dipped 7% to $26.25, giving it an implied valuation of $65.5 billion.

The Bloomberg poll, conducted by Selzer & Co., has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

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LinkedIn Corp. plans to raise as much as $175 million in an initial public offering, the first major social networking site to plan its stock market debut.

The Mountain View, Calif., company which runs the largest networking site for professionals, filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. It is widely believed that LinkedIn expects to raise about $200 million in the offering.

Barring any roadblocks, the 7-year-old company with 1,000 employees and 90 million users could go public in the next several months in one of the most anticipated offerings of the year. Investors have been clamoring for shares of the privately held company which has an implied value of $2.5 billion on private trading exchange SharesPost.

Internet IPOs look like they will be a hot commodity. Web content company Demand Media jumped 33% Wednesday in its first day of trading. Online coupon service Groupon Inc. is in talks about a possible public offering. Facebook Inc. likely will wait until 2012 for an IPO.

LinkedIn does not have the global girth of Facebook, which has more than 600 million users, but it has carved out a profitable niche in helping people hunt for jobs, recruit new employees or find industry experts.

Setting up a profile is free on the website, but LinkedIn makes money from paid subscriptions and advertising. It had revenue of $161.4 million in the first nine months of 2010, almost double the sales from the same period a year earlier, according to the prospectus. It generated net income of $10 million compared with a net loss of $3.4 million in the same period of 2009. 

LinkedIn did not disclose the target price for shares which likely will be set closer to the actual stock sale.

LinkedIn was created in 2003 by former PayPal executive and Internet investor Reid Hoffman. It has raised more than $100 million.

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Professional networking site LinkedIn could file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering as early as Thursday.

The Mountain View, Calif., company hired Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase to lead the offering.

LinkedIn spokesman Hani Durzy declined to comment.

Investors are anticipating the offering from LinkedIn, which has an implied value of $2.5 billion on private trading exchange SharesPost. It will be the first of the prominent social networking companies in Silicon Valley to dip its toes in public waters.

A $500-million investment in Facebook from Goldman Sachs and Russia's Digital Sky Technologies valued Facebook at $50 billion, the Palo Alto, Calif., social networking company said last week. Facebook is a giant in social networking with more than 600 million users.

LinkedIn, which helps people search for jobs, recruit employees and find experts, has grown to 90 million users in more than 200 countries. It has more than 1,000 employees.

LinkedIn Chief Executive Jeff Weiner ducked the question whether his company was planning to go public in a November interview. Weiner, a former Yahoo Inc. executive, joined LinkedIn in December 2008 and became CEO in June 2009.

"You don't necessarily have to go public to get to the next level," he said at the time.

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LinkedIn may be the first company to quench investor thirst for the red-hot social networking market.

Despite months of headlines from Facebook, Groupon and Twitter, the Mountain View, Calif., company which connects more than 85 million professionals could be first out of the gate. It has been quietly preparing an initial public offering for as early as the first quarter.

LinkedIn has hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase to advise it after a round of interviews in November. The size of the offering is not known, but it's expected to be small relative to the company's valuation. LinkedIn's implied valuation on the private trading marketplace SharesPost is $2.2 billion.

Tapping the public markets could be a smart play for LinkedIn, which could benefit from heightened investor interest in social media and get out in front of a blockbuster Facebook IPO expected in 2012.

"LinkedIn has its own story to tell, and this gives them a window to get out there and tell that story," said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis. "Even though the business models are different, it's wise for LinkedIn to get out there and avoid getting lost in the Facebook noise."

A LinkedIn spokesman declined to comment on the speculation. "An IPO is one of many tactics that we could choose to pursue," he said in an e-mailed statement. "We are focused on building our business and doing what is in the best long-term interest of LinkedIn members and shareholders."

The IPO plans were earlier reported by Reuters.

LinkedIn, which has more than 1,000 employees, may not have the explosive growth of Facebook but it is one of the first social media websites to become profitable, making money from premium services and advertising. LinkedIn does not disclose financial results but estimates of 2010 revenue are $200 million.

LinkedIn is the brainchild of former PayPal executive and early Facebook backer Reid Hoffman, a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor who helped usher in the social networking boom. LinkedIn's investors include Sequoia Capital, the famous venture capital firm that backed Apple, Google and Oracle, Greylock Partners (where Hoffman now works), Bessemer Venture Partners and Goldman Sachs. LinkedIn has raised more than $100 million in venture capital.

It's no secret that LinkedIn has been planning an IPO, although LinkedIn Chief Executive Jeff Weiner ducked the issue in a November interview. Weiner, a former Yahoo executive, joined LinkedIn in December 2008 and became chief executive officer in June 2009.

"You don't necessarily have to go public to get to the next level," he said.

But an IPO could be a springboard to accelerate the site's growth in the United States and overseas. LinkedIn has added 30 million users in the last 12 months alone.

"We believe LinkedIn is growing rapidly, in terms of membership, engagement, and revenue, and the market would be very accommodating," Wedbush Securities analyst Lou Kerner said.

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Are you a motivated and dynamic problem solver and team player with extensive experience? According to LinkedIn, you’re on the wrong track.

The business-focused social networking site said Tuesday that those terms are among the 10 most overused on the site’s more than 85 million profiles.

Other Hall of Famers: “innovative,” “results-oriented,” “proven track record,” fast-paced” and “entrepreneurial.”

So what’s the harm in pumping up a good resume? Employment experts explain that cliched words seem empty to recruiters and hiring managers, who instead look for hard numbers and specific anecdotes to illustrate a potential worker’s prowess.

LinkedIn recommends snaring future employers by juicing up the profile itself. Adding past positions instead of posting only a current job results in 12 times more views, according to the site. A photo also makes the profile more memorable.

And customizing the URL attached to the profile helps the resume appear higher on Google search results, according to the Mountain View, Calif.-based website.

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Two words help LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner sleep at night: keg stands.

"While many of us in college probably were at parties having a good time, doing things like keg stands, or being exposed to keg stands, I don't know that many of us would look forward to having a prospective employer have access to picture of those events," Weiner said during an onstage interview at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

Or, as conference host John Battelle added helpfully, "bong hits."

"That's a Bay Area guy," Weiner joked. "I'm from the East Coast."

His point: People want to keep their personal and professional identities separate. If Facebook is a place for your friends, LinkedIn is a place for your professional connections.

People have been speculating that LinkedIn is vulnerable to a Facebook take-down for years. So this is a question that Weiner fields a lot. But Weiner, a seasoned Silicon Valley executive, says he isn't too worried about anyone encroaching on his company's professional networking turf.

LinkedIn now has 85 million users, gets 60 million unique visitors a month and adds a new user every second. About half of all new accounts are overseas, the kind of rapid global growth that has caught the attention of investors. LinkedIn is estimated to be worth about $2 billion on the secondary market.

"People tend to lump us in with Facebook and Twitter," Weiner said. "But we're three very different things. Facebook is massive in scale and scope. Twitter is a public communication forum, but if I'm following you, you're not necessarily following me. LinkedIn is, simply, a professional network."

And in that space, Weiner doesn't see a lot of competition for his 7-year-old company.

"Critical mass matters in this business," he said. "To build [a competitor] from scratch today would be challenging. Other social ecosystems could be fertile ground for a new company that no one has heard of yet or that doesn't exist. ... Our focus on innovation makes that less likely."

Per usual, Weiner ducked the big question about the possibility of an IPO.

"You don't necessarily have to go public to get to the next level," he said.

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