Well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur Reid Hoffman will become CEO of LinkedIn again, taking on the job he had for nearly four years after founding the business networking company in 2003. Hoffman replaces current CEO Dan Nye, who has resigned and will leave the company in mid-January. More interesting in the shift is the appointment of former Yahoo exec Jeff Weiner as interim president, overseeing day-to-day operations at LinkedIn.

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Back in November, I did a video interview with LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye about the fast-growing, in-play business social network.

We talked about the future of LinkedIn and what it all means.

As BoomTown noted then, LinkedIn was the “‘professional’ social network, the serious cousin to the party-hearty twins of MySpace and Facebook.”

But that more dour productivity image certainly did not prevent it from getting a very happy $1 billion valuation yesterday and $53 million in new funding.

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In a much-expected financing, LinkedIn has joined the big funding club (Slide, Spot Runner) of late, by raising $53 million at a startling $1 billion valuation.

Why go public when you can just pretend?

Actually, unlike a lot of Web 2.0 start-ups, the professional-networking site has been profitable since 2006.

The new slug of cash comes from new investor Bain Capital Ventures, along with existing investors Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and Bessemer Ventures.

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The rumors have been a-flyin’ recently about the reported talks between LinkedIn and News Corp.
Billing itself as the “professional” social network, the serious cousin to the party-hearty twins of MySpace and Facebook, the LinkedIn service is squarely aimed at those with a task in mind from networking to recruiting to career advancement.
In many ways, it [...]

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