OpenSocial, week 2: more on Ask XING and XING News

Dear XING members,

A week has now passed since the launch of our OpenSocial applications “Ask XING” and “XING News”. It has been an amazing experience to see the apps spread and see our members making use of them The most popular question we have in Ask XING so far is which is the best German beer – but why not.
The response to the new apps has been overwhelming. You may have noticed this by the slowness of the apps at times, but the team is working flat out to improve this performance.
For those of you who haven’t had the chance to use the applications yet, let me share some general information with you:

Ask XING:
You’re facing a certain situation where you just don’t have the answer to a problem or question? Ideally you’d like to ask an expert – but you just don’t know where to find one?
XING is a huge business network made up of millions of people specialized in an incredible spectrum of disciplines and skills. Ask XING lets you consult them to help you find your answers. Wondering what’s involved in setting up a company in South America, or which project management tool is best for your line of work? Ask XING!
You can check out the questions posed by your contacts or filter questions you might be able to answer  – based on editable tags. You might also want to follow a question that interests you, mark it as a favorite or forward it to contacts who might know the answer. Or just dive into a hot discussion. Have fun!

XING News:
If you’re tired of being faced with a barrage of news every day, you’re not alone. You may well  monitor several different channels and media to find all your relevant news – even though chatting to your colleagues and friends is usually more informative. So why not have them filter the news for you?
XING News lets all users comment on articles and say if they like them or not.

This means you can find out which news items are “Hot on XING” and which are of most interest to your contacts. You can also flip through a couple of news tabs based on your language – from the Markets through to Entertainment. Discover XING News and all the latest that your contacts and the XING network are reading and liking.

Please bear in mind that both apps are still currently in a beta phase. We decided to ship products early and let our users tell us if and how they would like to them improved.

Keep all the valuable feedback coming! Simply visit our UserVoice forum.