It wasn’t that long ago that we were excited about LinkedIn offering sample to researchers.  After all, their audience is highly valuable to many researchers and their clients.

Well, this past week they closed their door to market research suppliers.  While we offered some initial concern with the long term viability of this source, it appears that too much demand wasn’t the problem, as we initially speculated, but rather not enough to make it profitable enough for LinkedIn to continue.  Perhaps the costs of research and incentives were too high for too many researchers (though you get what you pay for, in our opinion).

For another view on this, read the story on the Next Gen Market Research blog.