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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
XING (named openBC/Open Business Club until November 17th, 2006) is a social software platform for enabling a small-world network for professionals. It is used by people from over 190 countries, albeit the majority of users are Germans. XING is the only multilingual social business network allowing professionals to establish networks internationally. Languages currently available include English, German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Chinese, Finnish, Swedish, Japanese, Turkish and many more. By displaying how each member is connected to any other member, it visualises the small-world phenomenon.
The platform offers personal profiles, groups, discussion forums, event coordination, and other common social community features. Basic membership is free. But many core functions, like searching for people with specific qualifications or messaging people whom one is not already connected to, can only be accessed by the premium members. Premium membership comes at a monthly fee around 6 USD. The platform uses https and has a rigid privacy and no-spam policy. Unlike many other networking websites, XING provides its members very easy email access to any members.
XING started in November 2003 in Hamburg, Germany. It gained high attention in German media and is used a lot as business-network in German-speaking countries. Membership from other countries throughout Europe and the Far East helped growing the network platform to more than 1.5 million members in July 2006[1].
Xing.com is a German Web site that is a competitor of the American site LinkedIn for social networking among businesses.[2]
XING offers the system as well for closed communities, i.e. private clubs, academic clubs or corporate clubs with own access paths and own interface designs. The openBC platform serves as the infrastructure for corporate groups, including IBM, McKinsey, Accenture and others.[3]
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The company went public (IPO) on December, 7th 2006 with an issue price of 30 Euros. The Open Business Club Stock Ticker symbol is: O1BC.DE and it’s ISIN (International Securities Identifying Number) number is: DE000XNG8888. The stock value increased quickly and is risen by over 10% within less than two months to over 33 Euros.[3]
The initial public offering of Open BC/Xing provided a significant boost for the company.
Xing became the first web 2.0 company to go public.[4]
Xing.com Mobile allows you to access the most important functions from anywhere using your mobile phone, PDA or smartphone. Standards supported: HTML 3.2, XHTML MP 1.0, WML 1.1.
Xing.com Plugins are available for free download that allow contact Synchronization with Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook, Windows Address Book and Outlook Express. It also allows manual CSV File import/export and has a Firefox search Plug-in.
The Xing.com openBC Premium Groups were developed for major global communities, from university and corporate alumni groups to leading business magazines and multinational organizations. This social software offering enables effective management and growth of existing communities within the professional context of openBC.
- ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2006-07-12 (German)
- ^ Move Over Silicon Valley, Here Come European Start-Ups By John Markoff, 24/01/2007, The New York Times, USA
- ^ a b LinkedIn takes on Xing, or the other way around! by Carsten Cumbrowski, January 29th, 2007, SearchEngineJournal.com
- ^ Web 2.0 company Xing raises €35.7 million in IPO by Graham Charlton, 12. Dec 2006, e-Consultancy.com
- XING public entry site
- company weblog
- company information and press releases (source of membership numbers, languages etc.)
- XING was founded by Lars Hinrichs and co founded by Bill Liao and the software company epublica