There are a lot of clubs out there where you can only get in if you're wearing the right clothes or know the right people. But don’t worry, not at XING: As long as you are a “professional”, you're welcome to be part of the XING community. In other words: the picture below is a joke, one of a series of photos taken for the German newsmagazine Stern in connection with the "Deutscher Gründer Preis" (German Entrepreneurial Prize), in which XING was voted one of three finalists in the category "Aufsteiger" (Up and Comers). Companies nominated in this category must have been founded  less than seven years ago, and have already garnered attention as a result of excellent growth.   

Update: Be on the lookout for the real picture in the upcoming Stern issues on June 21st! 

“…any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

Douglas, we really really miss you! But thank you for all you gave to us...especially the fish ... and Arthur :)

Just around the corner of our offices: Hamburg and GreenBC - The AFTER-WORK-GOLF Network, represented by a XING Premium Group, celebrate “100 years of golf-history in Germany.”

A golf-dedicated theme park located right at the Binnenalster welcomes all golf fans to tee off into the water and get something to eat and drink in one of the 18 golf ball shaped pavilions.

Make sure you don’t miss tomorrow’s anniversary party! 

Here are the results of our little XING book poll:

32% of the 104 voters reported that they would like to read more. You can either go and buy the book, or watch out for available copies in your XING groups: During the next two weeks, we will be giving away free copies to group members. Moderators can apply on behalf of their group in the moderators’ group - watch out for a posting coming soon.

30% of the voters said “Great, but don’t need it”. If you’ve been a XING member for quite a while and know the platform inside out, the book isn’t essential reading. Please bear in mind that the book was written predominantly with new members in mind – users who are keen to learn more about how to use the functions and features, and what benefits they can gain.

18% said they would like to read “XING – Das Buch. Netzwerken leicht gemacht“ in English – We are currently discussing the possibility of publishing an English version. 20% said they would prefer to read a Jane Austen novel – but they might change their mind once they’ve won the XING book!:)

Just a couple of minutes ago we´ve launched the XING  "marketplace". It took less than three weeks to test the new feature. The beta tester have been very activce to post thousands of job offers online for you. Kudos to our beta tester and again, thank you very much for testing and supporting us so nicely. It´s  awesome!

A great thing about "marketplace" is that you can see who´s hiring from top European companies complete with business photos and profiles. Plus: with one click you can recommend an open position to your contact on XING. And for job posters: to have access to a talent pool of about 2 million professionals worldwide. For now we´ve started with jobs , but other categories like service and real estate might follow.

"Marketplace" was programmed entirely using Ruby on Rails.

I have seen Hans Rosling's gapminder speech now a few times. Two times at TED where Larry and Sergey from Google were amazed like everybody else. I doubted at that time that we might see some colloboration and finally it's here. Open you mind and feel your new love to data, animated data.

I am not sure yet, if I really like Twitter or not. Its more convenient than blogging and definitely much easier to use on my mobile. I just discovered two amazing websites from Dave Troy who does a Mashup from Flickr, Twitter and GoogleMaps. This is really the live web: twittervision, flickrvision. We could easy do a xingvision

Update: take a look at Troy's things in 3D

Just minutes ago XING launched a limited, private beta test of its new product "Marketplace". The XING Marketplace enables members to post offers to the XING community. The Marketplace will initially incorporate the category job openings, in which premium members can post jobs to XING's two million business professionals.

XING members can view offers and search for postings. In addition, interesting postings that match their profiles will be conveniently presented on the Marketplace start page. Of course - as always on XING - you can benefit from the visible connection paths in the XING Marketplace.

The limited beta test has just begun with a closed group. Following our member focus, we are giving some members a chance to try this new feature and send us their feedback before launching to all XING members.

Keen to test the XING Marketplace? We still have some places left! If you want to participate, simply click here and join the XING Research Panel. We will shortly get back to you, if we can fit you into the beta test.

The Next Web Awards in Amsterdam.

The speaker
The agenda

Most readers probably know a thing or two about assets.
It’s all about money, right?
Euros and cents? Not always. How many of you out there—economists and financial experts excepted—know about ‘intangible assets’?

According to Wikipedia, are “those non-monetary assets that cannot be seen, touched or physically measured, and which are created through time and/or effort”. In other words, important intangible assets might include a company’s trademark (the XING wings) and the collected knowledge of its employees.

If you’d like to learn more, you can download our new white paper entitled “Corporate Alumni Networks: Leveraging Intangible Assets”, which  presents a summary of key issues, benefits, risks, and critical success factors, collected from dialogues with thought leaders.

The XING annual survey looks closely at Internet communication, the importance of networking (online and offline) and how people manage their business contacts. The target of the survey is to investigate communication and networking behaviour and to make comparisons between international XING members.

Have you been randomly chosen to take part in XING’s third international annual survey?
Watch the top left-hand corner on your XING start page and this is what you should see:

By taking part in the study you will have the chance to win one of 200 annual premium XING memberships. Click here to see published summaries of results from previous annual surveys.

The survey will start today and will run for six weeks so please watch out for the teaser (shown above), click on it and play an important part in XING’s development.

We look forward to your valuable feedback!