In the past few weeks, we’ve begun sharing relevant LinkedIn news, events and video coverage through our @linkedinnews twitter account. For those of you who want more than just a scoop, we’re also starting a blog series that will highlight recent press on LinkedIn events. This is the first of many such posts.

On Wednesday, our CEO Jeff Weiner sat down with John Battelle at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. We thought we’d share with you both the video interview along with some of the related coverage and video snippets. The interview itself is about 30 minutes long (embedded below) but it covers a wide variety of topics – from our company’s growth to Jeff’s vision for the next wave of the global economy — the Talent Economy.

Watch:

Related coverage:

1. O’Reilly Radar: 4 minute video interview of Jeff prior to his on-stage interview
2. CNBC: 12 minute video interview with Jeff on LinkedIn’s global growth, mobile possibilities, secondary markets and a host of other topics
3. LA Times covers Jeff’s Web 2.0 interview
4. Mashable on our most successful product to-date
5. TechCrunch on LinkedIn’s unique value proposition and our key difference from other social networking sites / Also, a short commentary on our recent growth numbers
6. More coverage here, here and here…

As I mentioned earlier, we plan to bring you similar coverage in a more time sensitive manner as we move forward. In the meanwhile, please follow us @linkedinnews for breaking news, tweets and related content on LinkedIn.

TechCrunch, a leading technology blog, and Founders Fund, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, just announced an annual program honoring technology innovators for achievement and excellence in high-tech entrepreneurship, the TechFellow Awards.

For those of you who are interested, here’s a brief description of the awards. (Read more at TechCrunch)

The TechFellow Awards program will grant at least twelve fellows $25,000 each to invest in an early stage startup of their choice. Founders Fund will invest an additional $25,000 alongside those investments and request an additional right to invest another $250,000 when the company raises its next round of financing. In all, Founders Fund expects to devote around $3.6 million to the program.

We’re glad to announce the participation of both Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner in helping pick the winners. You should also check out Reid’s earlier Washington Post op-ed on spurring innovation and investments to help bail us out this economy. You can also check out Reid’s interview (see below) on Charlie Rose where he discusses similar topics.

Passengers on the US Airways flight that crash-landed into the Hudson River Thursday afternoon praised the actions and courage of the pilot, a safety consultant with 40 years of experience in the aviation industry.

Kudos poured in from for Capt. Sullenberger in light of his courageous and calm handling of the situation. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, said:

“He did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river. He was the last one off the plane.”

Also, tape recordings of the radio traffic from Flight 1549 reported the pilot was “extraordinarily calm” during the event.

“There was no panic, no hysterics. It was professional, it was calm, it was methodical. It was everything you hoped it could be.”

Look no further than Capt. Sullenberger’s LinkedIn Profile, for further proof of his skill, expertise and competence:

Looks like the recommendation section of Captain Sullenberger needs some updating after today’s steady stream of kudos. Our best wishes go out to the passengers, crew and to our Hero of the Day – Capt. C. B. Sullenberger!

Update your LinkedIn Profile today!

Here are the top 10 LinkedIn stories of 2008!

1. Announcing LinkedIn Mobile (includes an iPhone version) by Brandon Duncan

The growth in the Mobile Social Networking space this year coupled with the enormous interest in the iPhone may have contributed to the popularity of our LinkedIn Mobile post that Brandon Duncan wrote in February of this year. The post included a video by Jerry Luk demoing LinkedIn’s mobile app.

Today, I’d like to announce LinkedIn mobile for any Web enabled wireless phones that use the wireless application protocol (WAP). What that allows you to do is access LinkedIn from any mobile device ranging from your Blackberry to iPhone.

Read entire post here.

2. Now companies too have profiles on LinkedIn by Maisy Samuelson

In March of this year, we launched the ability for companies to have profiles on LinkedIn. Maisy wrote a blog post around that, with an accompanying 3 minute demo of the product feature.

Starting now, you’ll be able to see over 160,000 profiles of companies on LinkedIn, ranging from Fortune 500 companies (e.g. eBay) to philanthropic organizations (e.g. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) as well as LinkedIn’s own Company Profile page.  Company Profiles on LinkedIn is a succinct overview of a company’s industry data in combination with LinkedIn data along certain key metrics.

Read entire post here.

3. Guess who’s viewed your profile by Steven Stegman

“Who’s viewed my Profile” along with “People You May Know” (see #5 below) are two of the most commented feature posts on our blog. This post was an introduction to the “who’s viewed my profile” feature that can be accessed here.

Maybe you’ve wondered in the past who’s been viewing your profile. If so, you’re not alone — it’s been one of our most common feature requests. I’m very happy to announce that we launched a new feature that’ll both tell you how many people have viewed your profile in the past week as well as reveal some interesting characteristics about them.

Read entire post here.

4. LinkedIn’s new redesigned homepage with Status by Elliot Shmukler

This was the first of a series of posts blogged by Elliot on the homepage features. This post, published in February, hints at the LinkedIn homepage redesign that was being rolled out to millions of our users. It also led to the infamous blooper reel from Elliot.

On many past occasions I’ve blogged about incremental changes being made to the LinkedIn homepage design, so I’m really glad to announce the complete redesign of the LinkedIn homepage and am going to to walk you through some of those changes in a demo that you can find below.

Read entire post here.

5. Learn more about “People You May Know” by Jonathan Goldman

As I mentioned above, yet another of those “Aha” inspiring features on LinkedIn. Jonathan walks us through the three steps of using the feature – Find, Fine-tune and See more.

We’ve recently enhanced “People you may know” by expanding it to more users and providing a means for you to give us feedback about the quality of the recommendations. This feature has been around for almost a year and the goal is to suggest people you may want to connect to.

Read entire post here.

6. Announcing Applications on LinkedIn by Reid Hoffman

The most linked to post this entire year received trackbacks from every major tech outlet from Business Week to TechCrunch. The post also featured a video with intro demos from all of our application partners.

This initial roll out features productivity applications that range from gathering information that professionals around you are generating to enhancing your abilities to collaborate and communicate more effectively. You’ll be able to work much more closely with your contacts on LinkedIn with tools such as file sharing, project management, business trips and many more.

Read entire post here.

7. CNBC gets LinkedIn by Dan Nye

Dan wrote a post announcing the launch of LinkedIn’s collaboration with CNBC  and its three broad implications for our 33 million users. This post was also accompanied by a question that Dan asked on LinkedIn Answers.

Today, I’d like to announce the start of our collaboration with one of the most recognized leaders in global business news – CNBC! This collaboration includes CNBC integrating LinkedIn’s community and networking functionality into CNBC.com, enabling users to share and discuss news with their professional networks.

Read entire post here.

8. Bain Capital Ventures joins the LinkedIn team by Dan Nye

In June of this year, Dan announced the addition of Bain Capital ventures to our existing round of investors. The post also featured a quick 5 minute video from our investors on the partnership, which included further details.

Today I am happy to announce that LinkedIn has raised additional funding from our original investors and added another world-class investor to our team. Bain Capital Ventures joins our existing group of investors – Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and Bessemer Ventures – and leads this round of investment at a total of $53 million.

Read entire post here.

9. Announcing LinkedIn’s new Search platform by Esteban Kozak

The most recent post on our Top 10 list, features our new search platform announcement from November of this year. Esteban walks us through the various features both in the post as well walking us through the features in a video demo.

The new search platform at LinkedIn is redefining the way professionals go about finding talent, business partners, customers or a former colleague. Here is a video that summarizes some of the key features in the new search experience, followed by key elements of the new functionality.

Read entire post here.

10. Announcing LinkedIn Searchable Groups directory by Ben Guthrie

LinkedIn Groups has grown tremendously this past year. The Searchable Groups directory kicked off a slew of critical enhancements to the Groups functionality on LinkedIn. No wonder, it found it’s place on our Top 10 list for the year.

We are thrilled to announce the launch of LinkedIn’s Groups Directory on Friday, July 11! With over 90,000 groups on LinkedIn, it was about time to make the complete list easily accessible by our members. The goal with this feature is to make it easier for people to find groups to join, and we think the directory goes a long way toward achieving that goal.

Read entire post here.

Stay tuned to the LinkedIn blog as we continue to bring you the latest in professional networking, product announcements, and user success stories. Feel free to leave us a comment or two, any feedback or suggestion in making this content more accessible to you. And, last but not the least, Happy Holidays! See you in the New Year!

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The eight tips that Michelle mentions in her article are: 1. Boost Your Profile’s SEO, 2. Broadcast Your News, 3. Join a Group, 4. Ask and Answer Questions, 5. Find Companies to Work for and Rising Stars to Emulate, 6. Give and Get Recommendations, 7. Make Contacts Judiciously, and 8. Don’t Wait Till You Lose Your Job.

Her single piece of advice for job hunters:

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Join LinkedIn now, even if you have a job to go to every week. If you get laid off, you’ll be glad you don’t have to scramble to piece together an entire network of professionals willing to go to bat for you.

The piece also links to our VP of Marketing and Advertising, Patrick Crane‘s ABC7 video interview that was filmed awhile back.

LinkedIn Tips for the Job Hunter:

1. LinkedIn Jobs helps you find or fill that next job using the power of your network.

• Job seekers can utilize inside connections at potential employers to help land their dream job.
• Hiring managers can tap into a network of over 20 million professionals to find the ideal candidate with the specific skill set and experience needed.

Check out LinkedIn Jobs

2. The right person, talent, or knowledge you’re looking for is already on LinkedIn. Use search to find what you need to be more effective professionally:

• Search by name and other distinguishing characteristics to quickly locate the person you are looking for.
• Use the advanced search to target specific skill sets or find subject-matter experts.
• Conduct reference searches on potential job candidates and business partners.

Find who you’re looking for on LinkedIn’s Advanced Search