Ahead of an IPO that may )or may not( take place this year, privately traded shares of LinkedIn are beginning to soar in value. New rumors indicate that share prices make the professional networking company worth about $3 billion. Douglas MacMillan and Ari Levy reported earlier this morning, "LinkedIn Corp. shares are being sold in an auction by secondary exchange SharesPost Inc. for $30 apiece, valuing the professional-networking website at almost $3 billion,

Let's be honest: however content most people are with their jobs, Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list can elicit envy. So LinkedIn and CNNMoney may be onto something, as they've partnered to point people who read the list towards individuals who work at the top companies. This marks the first implementation of LinkedIn's Company Insider widget, which would be quite significant on its own.

BlackBerry users who feel ignored every time a report on the mobile industry stops after comparing Android devices and the iPhone have reason to be grateful to Bing. Today, Bing for Mobile updates were announced that will bring the app to more BlackBerry users, add new features, and improve the overall experience to boot. Let's start with the subject of compatibility. Thanks to the updates, the app will now work on devices running BlackBerry OS6,

The point of a laboratory is to facilitate testing. The average chemist might not get too far if he was just presented with a jumble of beakers, however, and similarly, Gmail Labs has been getting pretty messy. A new feature promises to fix that issue. Greg Bullock, a software engineer at Google, explained the problem on the Gmail Blog . He wrote, "Have you ever found it just a little bit tricky to find what you were looking for on the Gmail Labs Settings page ?

Yahoo7, which is the product of a partnership between Yahoo and the Seven Network in Australia, is now also part of the group buying phenomenon. Yahoo7 announced today that it's acquired Spreets, a group buying site with 500,000 members. Reports indicate that Spreets sold for $40 million - the same amount it's supposed to have saved consumers in the last year, coincidentally. Meanwhile,

Statistics prove that YouTube.com is one of the most visited pages in existence. At the same time, anecdotal evidence suggests people barely give it a glance before conducting a search or clicking away. So a new homepage has been designed, and it's now launched for everyone to see. A quick clarification: the overhauled homepage is actually available for everyone who's logged in to see. Which some people may view as an inconvenience or even a threat to their privacy,

The fourth quarter of 2010 - which of course coincided with the all-important holiday shopping season - was a pretty good period for eBay. The company reported its financial results this afternoon, and managed to come in above analysts' forecasts. Experts thought eBay might report fourth-quarter earnings of $0.47 per share and $2.49 billion in revenue. Instead, eBay managed to report earnings per share of $0.52 and $2.50 billion in revenue.

AdWords advertisers who prefer not to go with the "guess and check" method when trying to attract customers are in luck. This afternoon, Google announced some improvements to its Ad Preview Tool, allowing users to get a good idea of how their ads will appear without wasting any time or money. Gordon Zhu, an associate product marketing manager, wrote on the Inside AdWords blog, "If you're signed into your account while previewing your ads,

The Russian search company that has had little difficulty fending off Google in its homeland is also doing rather well financially. Today, Yandex announced its 2010 financial results, and the company saw its revenues increase by an impressive 43 percent compared to 2009. That puts Yandex's revenue for 2010 at about $410 million, which is a tidy enough sum. As for some other achievements, an official announcement explained,

Twitter usage has increased a lot in South Korea over the last year, and it may soon skyrocket. Late yesterday, Twitter announced that it has launched in Korean, giving South Korea's 48.5 million citizens the opportunity to access the service in their native language. An official blog post - which you can view in Korean here if you like - explained, "Twitter.com and Twitter's mobile web site are now translated into Korean. . . .

Adult content is at last heading to the iPad. Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, who recently asserted new control by offering to buy out the company's remaining shareholders, has stated that uncensored versions of the magazine will be available on the device starting this March. Hefner, who will turn 85 in April, shared the news late yesterday on Twitter. You can see his first tweet on the subject below. Later, Hefner added ,

Early last year, it looked like Google might leave )or get kicked out( of China. Then, in a business sense, the best-case scenario appeared to be a series of embarrassing losses to Baidu. But a new report from Analysys International indicates that Google's share of search advertising revenue in China may have stabilized at a respectable level. Michael Kan wrote earlier today, "The search engine giant's share of Chinese search advertising revenue rose to 23.

Last year, Google invested in Zynga and Ngmoco, acquired Slide and Jambool, and unveiled games intended for the Chrome Web Store in rapid succession. Now, the search giant may be ready to take another game-related step, as it's hired Kinect developer Johnny Chung Lee to join a special projects group. Additional details are scarce. Indeed, with respect to his new position, Lee only wrote on his blog, "I have left Microsoft to join a special projects team at Google.

Whether it's been accomplished by the hardware, the software, or the marketing department, Apple has done something right when it comes to creating user loyalty. New data from Zokem indicates that iOS users are more loyal than the users of other mobile operating systems by a wide margin. Zokem surveyed over 1,500 smartphones users and found that, on a loyalty scale ranging from negative 100 to 100 percent, the iPhone scored an impressive 73 percent.

Boards of directors tend to stay in the background at most companies; when it comes to people, you're much more likely to hear about the CEO, a VP of something or other, or even some hotshot engineer. But LinkedIn's board has a new member this morning, and Michael Moritz brings a lot to the table. Educated at Oxford, Moritz has previously served on the boards of directors at Google, PayPal, and Yahoo. He's on five other boards right now, too,

If and when Goldman Sachs begins selling shares of Facebook, the banking and securities firm is almost guaranteed to have no trouble finding buyers. Adding to the existing hype, a new report from eMarketer predicts that Facebook's ad revenue will soar from $1.86 billion in 2010 to $4.05 billion this year. That works out to a year-over-year increase of about 118 percent, which is rather remarkable. Facebook's good fortune isn't supposed to end there, either,

Last week, reports indicated that Google had become the top search engine in the Czech Republic, leaving it not number one in just five countries. Jaws dropped and people applauded in response. Only now, Seznam.cz - a competitor in the Czech Republic - has claimed that everyone was far too quick to believe the initial assertion. Seznam.cz said in an official statement, "A report, which announced the fall of Seznam.

Often enough, products, services, and contests that originate in the U.S. are just available and/or open to American citizens. Now, in an unusual reversal of that custom, Goldman Sachs has announced that only clients who aren't based in the U.S. will be allowed to buy shares of Facebook's private stock through the firm. Goldman Sachs maintains that this move wasn't ordered by the Securities and Exchange Commission,

An antitrust probe that began way back in August of 2008 has at last concluded, and the outcome tends to favor Google. Italian authorities have decided not fine the company or subject it to any additional regulation. Google's problems began when an Italian organization representing newspaper and periodical publishers claimed its members were being more or less forced to share content on Google News.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is taking another medical leave of absence. Apple confirmed the move this morning with an official statement, which we've reprinted in full below. Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all Apple employees: Team, At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.