LinkedIn Corp., the first major U.S. social-media company to sell shares to the public, may deserve a valuation that more closely resembles those of business-software makers such as Salesforce.com Inc. than Facebook Inc.
Demand for LinkedIn shares prompted the company to increase the offering twice. The valuation of as much as $4.25 billion implies a multiple of 11.3 times projected annual sales, compared with 13.8 for Facebook and 8.3 for Salesforce.com.
