Who knows who Hoovers is anymore?

Companies used to buy lists to cold call against from these guys. They are at least partially located here in Austin, Texas. At least some of their tech is. Microsoft will buy LinkedIn. That news broke today. I once spoke to a dev from Hoovers who told me of how they (Hoovers) were to buy LinkedIn and passed on the opportunity. He said it was a mistake. I think this was back in 2010. It was at a surprise birthday party for Kevin Hurwitz. He turned 32 and it was one of Kevin's friends who was at Hoovers and I think he was past coworker of Kevin's. I can't remember the guy's name. His wife was very pregnant and miserable as she was pregnant in the Summertime and he and I and the wife all talked about how awesome the movie "Josie and the Pussycats" is/was. Whatever. Yikes Hoovers what a loss, huh? You know there is nothing special about LinkedIn other than the convention that distinguishes it from Facebook and MySpace and the like that people will use it for business. The funny thing is that we've all imbraced the convention and use it as was hoped for instead of dragging that part of our lives into Google+ or something similar. The boundary between what it stands for and other social media is not enforced with code itself and there is really nothing stopping bikini-clad girl pictures from appearing all over LinkedIn other than a tradition we all seem to honor. That's weird and cool. I digress.