News websites are abuzz with LinkedIn's new billion-dollar valuation and comparisons between it and social networking sites. I thought it might be interesting to view this information in comparison.

LINKEDIN
Valuation: $1billion
Recent infusion : $53million
% it got: 5%
Users: 23 million
Unique visitors in April: 7.5 million
Increase in unique visitors in April: 7.6%
Ave. age of user: 41 years
Age of founder: 41 years
Year founded: 2003
Core focus: Business

FACEBOOK
Valuation: $15 billion
Recent infusion: $240 million
% it got: 1.6%
Users: 70 million
Unique visitors in April: 116 million
Increase in unique visitors in April: 6.6%
Ave. age of user: 25 years
Age of founder: 23 years
Year founded: 2005
Core focus: Pleasure

In several interviews, founder Dan Nye highlighted the fact that LinkedIn's average user is 41 years old, makes over $100,000, and obviously is more professional than the average Facebook user. But let's say it's 2013 and millions of Facebook's more-global users get jobs and increasingly resemble the LinkedIn demographic. Should FB buy LinkedIn then? Will these two worlds still co-exist, or will they merge?

Here's my take. These worlds are increasingly merging (read Chapter 8 in the book). There are millions of users who maintain profiles in both these worlds and end up having the same friends in both these worlds (I know because I do). A few more years into this socially transparent Internet life and it will be nearly impossible to play social-network Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, even if you're good at it. Just google someone on LinkedIn or Facebook and you'll know what I mean. LinkedIn reveals her professional photo and resume; Facebook reveals her funny photo and friends.

At some point, investors within these companies will explore with evil glee what they could do if they had access to both my professional and personal information. I'm sure they're asking these questions already, and googling for some fat and dense legal blahblahblah that I will never read before clicking. Or Godfather Google might be gently smirking and imagining how its family will look when it adopts both these babies and is able to link my professional life to my personal life to my confused life (I usually 'search' what I'm confused about).

Holy cow, I'm cooked. I should be given 100 lashes for thinking such bad thoughts.