Release flash: More convenience, more performance

Changing an underlying layer of an IT infrastructure involves a similar level of risk to whipping away a lightly stained table cloth from underneath a set of beautiful porcelain china: The worst-case scenario is a heap of priceless family heirlooms on the floor; if things turn out right nobody will notice a thing – except perhaps that everything looks a little more spick and span.

Today, XING members have had several new proverbial table cloths laid for them: we’ve been busy cleaning up parts of the database of our event invitations, which we speed things up in this part of the site.

Google Maps: No more diversion

We’re also applying an optimization that Google has now introduced for Google Maps, which we use for instance to visualize your contacts on a map. It is well-documented that Google didn’t offer this service at the launch via SSL. This led to error messages for lots of users, as the rest of the XING site is completely SSL-encrypted and some browsers object to displaying encrypted and unencrypted data at the same time. We put a proxy server in place in between to avoid this. But now that Google Maps are now available with encryption, this server has become superfluous, boosting our performance levels here as well.

Enhanced inbox/outbox management with a new dropdown menu

Last week already saw improvements to the Messages section go live – as well as the launch of a more intuitive layout for your inbox and outbox, you can now also browse backwards and forwards between messages. There has been a further optimization to the interface this week with a new drop-down menu, enabling you to implement the same action (e.g. “Delete” or “Mark as (un)read”) for several of your messages at once.

Inviting people to events just became easier than ever

Good news for all members who want to spread the word about an event they’re organizing: You can now invite several people at once via email. Simply enter their respective addresses in the recipient field, separating them with commas.

For another exciting upcoming development, see CPO Jason Goldberg’s post.