IN OTHER BUSINESS

Amazon: E-books outselling paperbacks

NEW YORK -- Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday said that, after lessthan four years of selling electronic books, it's now selling moreof them than printed books. The online retailer said that sinceApril 1, it has sold 105 e-books for every 100 printed books,including printed books for which there is no electronic edition.The comparison excludes free e-books, which would tip the scalesfurther if they were included.

Printed books include both hardcover and paperback books. Amazonsaid in July that e-book sales had outstripped hardcover sales. It'snow selling three times as many e-books as it did a year ago.

Amazon also said the latest and cheapest version of its Kindle e-book reading device is the best-seller of the line, five weeks afterit was introduced. The Kindle with Special Offers costs $114, andshows ads in standby mode.

LinkedIn stock doubles in 1st trading

NEW YORK -- LinkedIn's stock more than doubled in its marketdebut Thursday because of huge investor demand for the first majorU.S. social networking company to go public.

The stock closed at $94.25 a share, after reaching as high as$103 midday under the symbol "LNKD" on the New York Stock Exchange.The company had one of the biggest first-day gains of 2011, up about109 percent from its initial public offering price.

Only Chinese online security company Qihoo 360 Technology Co. hasclosed higher, ending up 134.5 percent when it debuted March 30. At$103, LinkedIn's gain is 129 percent.

LinkedIn Corp.'s initial public offering Wednesday night waspriced at $45 per share, at the high end of the company's initialtarget. The company raised $353 million in an IPO that valued it at$4.3 billion. That's the largest valuation for a U.S. Internetcompany since Google went public in 2004.

LinkedIn's service helps businesses find new employees andpromotes networking among more than 102 million people who have setup profiles.