“What’s new in my network” is one of the best loved and most used features on XING. It lets you see right on your start page (which you can customize) what’s happening right now in your own personal network. Perhaps a contact has uploaded a profile attachment, decided to attend an event or joined a new group … This feed let’s you know about it in seconds! Clicking on “more” or the respective Powersearch option gives you the complete list of updates. (more…)

In addition to the XING Partner Ecosystem, there are several other changes to improve networking on XING that went live. Now when you’re looking through Company Profiles and find one that might interest someone you know, you can recommend it to the contact. (more…)

Come one, admit it: if you’re reading this you’re familiar with the Official XING Regional Groups. You’re not? Well, they’re groups moderated by XING Ambassadors, who also organize the Official XING Events. Around the world, over 200 XING Ambassadors head regional XING groups and organize XING Live! Events.

After the rousing success of XING Regional Groups and Events, we’ve decided to expand our Ambassador Program, now adding to the mix XING Xpert Ambassadors, whom you can spot from the purple icon next to their profile. As you might guess from the name, Xpert Ambassadors are experts in a certain industry who frequently organize industry-specific networking events. (more…)

Last week we launched the new XING Partner Ecosystem. We’re happy to see that the new apps are already being used by thousands of members. All apps are available to both basic and Premium members, free of charge. (For an overview of the XING app partners and what the apps offer for all XING members, please see the recent press release and our SlideShare presentation.) Some of our partners are offering special deals to XING premium members, e.g. more storage space, more functionalities or other extended features.

After adding file attachments and birthday reminders last week, we’re now giving our Premium Members more for their money. In the future, we’ll continue to work to make Premium Membership more attractive than ever.

These four partners are currently offering XING Premium members some extra goodies: Huddle, Mindmeister, Spreed and Zcope. (more…)

Editor’s note: This article by Tungle-founder and CEO Marc Gingras is part of a series following the launch of the XING Partner Ecosystem where the developers of the OpenSocial apps get the opportunity to present their applications.

Tungle is proud to be one of the first Open Social apps released on the Xing platform, and the only app that syncs with your existing e-calendar to bring click-to-meet technology to your Xing profile (see the full press release).

What’s Tungle.me?

Tungle.me is the simplest way to make meetings happen. It brings a widget into your profile that shows your real time availability and lets members of your network schedule meetings with you. (more…)

It won’t surprise you that one of our key efforts is reducing the workload that the platform puts on your and our machines. The introduction of OpenSocial applications increased the challenge – the applications are hosted on different machines (with their own performance issues), and we integrated them via iFrames, on the front page, on the profile page and in what we call the canvas view.

So, at the moment, you might have several iFrames on your start page. An elegant solution, except for the heavy load they put on your browser – the extreme case, Internet Explorer, requires up to 8 Megabyte of RAM for each rendered iFrame. Furthermore, as the front and profile page often extends vertically way beyond the viewport. But still we have to render the content in iFrames you might not even see.

Wait. Do we have to do that? (more…)

Dear readers, dear XING members,

I’m excited to announce that now, with the launch of Travelload, yet another external application from the XING Partner Ecosystem went live.  As our Chief Product Officer Jason Goldberg already stated in his previous blog post, the Partner Ecosystem is based on OpenSocial.

In contrast to applications that have been developed for proprietary environments, OpenSocial applications are interoperable within the context of multiple networks and build on standard technologies such as HTML and JavaScript. For XING, OpenSocial presents a great opportunity to expand our existing functionalities with a host of additional third-party applications, without having to relinquish control over our members’ personal data in the process.

To use an application, you need to add it to your XING account through our Application Directory. Once you have done so, you can start interacting with this application. XING currently supports three different locations where applications are rendered. In the Opensocial standard, these locations are formally known as Views: (more…)

Today I’d like to show you how to go about finding the events that will benefit you the most. As I’m sure you know, you can find interesting events in the main navigation link under “Events” / “All Events”, but there are other ways, too!

To stay informed about new events on XING, you should first add the “Events that might interest you” box to your home page and position it where you want it to appear on the page (more about customizing your home page). Then click on “more” in the “Events that might interest you” box. This will take you to the advanced event search where you can start looking for more events. (more…)

Editor’s note: This article by Huddle co-founder and CEO Alastair Mitchell is part of a series following the launch of the XING Partner Ecosystem where the developers of the OpenSocial apps get the opportunity to present their applications.

In the age of social networking, email is no longer an adequate collaboration tool. Enter Huddle Workspaces, your own private and secure workspaces, on XING to help you work with your connections.

We have developed Huddle Workspaces specifically for XING and the launch of its Partner Ecosystem. XING is leading the way in business networking and Huddle Workspaces will make it easier for XING members to work better together on projects or brainstorm with new ventures.

Huddle Workspaces include all the key features of Huddle, our network of secure online workspaces that is currently used by companies including P&G, Kia Motors, Pearson and Nokia. Huddle is currently available in English, German, French and Italian, with more languages to follow. (more…)

It gives us great pleasure to announce The XING Partner Ecosystem.

Starting today, XING’s members will benefit from a wide variety of partner applications on the XING platform.

The XING Partner Ecosystem is made possible via the OpenSocial framework. XING’s partners are able to create applications using OpenSocial and then easily enable those applications to integrate into the XING professional network. The Applications are tightly integrated into the core functionality of XING, and are thus able to leverage XING’s “business graph” of connections between professionals to make the applications engaging and rewarding for XING’s users. (more…)

Have you ever dreamed of having someone find all of your relevant contacts and information for you? A little pixie that presents you with all new possible contacts or networking opportunities at the beginning of the week or day?

Well, get ready for a pleasant surprise – there already is one. (more…)

Hi everyone.

I’m thrilled to announce that we’ll be launching the XING PARTNER ECOSYSTEM next week.

This major product launch will mark the first time that XING’s business partners are able to provide their own applications on the XING platform. This provides a huge benefit for XING’s members as our partners will compliment XING’s own applications with additional products and services made better by being delivered over the XING professional network. (more…)

Our main goal at XING is to give you the tools that enable you to build up your network and present yourself and your work in the best possible way. That’s why Premium Members now have the option of uploading attachments to their profiles. You can upload work samples, references, your resume or even brochures for other members to see. (more…)

Just sending a short birthday message to your contacts can make a world of difference: They foster a personal relationship and connection, and leave a good impression in the mind of the person celebrating a birthday. Our members already know this, which is why many have added the “Your contacts’ birthdays” box to the XING home page, or use the Premium Powersearch. (more…)

What page do you see first when you log on to https://www.xing.com? Exactly. Your home page. Have you simply been using the navigation bar to go directly to your groups or messages? That’s fine. But it’s even better to personalize your home page so that it displays information that is important to you.

For example, “What’s new in your network” makes sure you know when one of your contacts gets a new job, and “Visitor’s to your profile” shows you people that might be worth getting to know. If you are looking for new challenges, you should activate “Jobs that may interest you”. Groups, events, jobs, interesting XING members – the list of options is endless. Or at least almost endless. Including our OpenSocial applications, there are currently 16 boxes that you can display on your home page. (more…)

We’re proud to announce yet another nifty XING gadget. iGoogle users can now use shortcuts to get to the best-loved and most used XING features.

This is the new XING gadget on iGoogle..

We’ve already received masses of positive feedback in response to the XING App on Allyve.com and the XING Desktop Gadget for Windows Vista. iGoogle allows you to create your personalized Google page. The new XING Gadget lets you see what’s going on in your network at any given time – right from your iGoogle start page.

The XING Gadget keeps you up-to-the-minute, showing you at a glance who last visited your profile, how many new contact requests you have and how many unread messages are waiting for you. An integrated XING search means you can search directly for people or companies on XING from the comfort of your customized start page.

The gadget is currently available in German, English, Spanish, Turkish and Italian. The default language for all other users is English. As always, data protection is our top priority. We’ve applied the very latest Oauth Standards with this feature, meaning your personal data remains secure.

Install the XING Gadget for iGoogle now.

Have fun!

XING has successfully been recruiting Ambassadors around the world for two years. Ambassadors moderate official regional XING groups (click here for an overview of the regional Ambassador groups) and regularly organize networking events. The Ambassador program adds an offline dimension to networking on the XING platform. Every year thousands of members meet up at official Ambassador events with the motto “Start on a personal note, and soon you’ll be in business”. Some examples include the summer festival held recently by the XING Community in Munich or the networking event at the Kiel Week festival. In 2008 over 50,000 XING members participated in more than 700 of these events.

Deniz Seebacher, XING Ambassador No. 200

New XING Ambassadors are continually joining the ranks and new regional groups are continually being created around the world. In June we welcomed the 200^th Ambassador, Deniz Seebacher, in Guatemala.  She tells us how she ended up becoming an Ambassador:

“I have been a XING member since 2005, but I really started using the business network intensively when I moved to Guatemala for personal reasons in 2009. I was looking for new contacts in a country where I hardly knew anyone. My search for German-speaking members in Guatemala City didn’t return many hits, but I wrote to a few of them. That’s how, in addition to meeting two people who have become very good friends of mine, I got to know Christoph and his company Officient, which led to my first local project. Since Christoph and I value XING as a networking platform and wanted to use it more intensively, we started looking for contacts on the local market. At the time, XING was looking for Ambassadors in Central America. So we decided to become Ambassadors and start up the XING Guatemala group.

(more…)

Search is a big issue here at XING. Each day, we are processing numerous search queries, spread across events, jobs, company profiles and user search. For such a high search volume, you need rock solid technology that you can trust. For the last two and a half years, this technology has been Ferret.

Why we chose Ferret initally

Ferret was introduced when we needed a search service for XING Jobs, which was the first part of our application using the Ruby on Rails framework. At that time, Ferret was just right. As it is written in super fast C code, it became  first choice when it comes to performance. But it is also partly written in Ruby, which allowed us to write the analyzer, query parser and tokenizer in our favorite language (oh the joy!). Ferret has served us very well until now. (more…)

Dear readers,

I know that a lot of you out there use a program to manage all your events and contacts. PC or web-based software such as MS Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple iCal, Entourage, Lotus Notes or Thunderbird Lightning can greatly simplify managing all your events. Many of these programs can be synced with several computers and mobile devices, meaning you’ll never miss an appointment, wherever you are.

Wouldn’t it be great if your XING Events were also integrated into this framework, if you could access them when you’re not online or on XING, or print out a daily schedule? That’s precisely why we offer an export function for XING Events. I’ll show you how to do it using MS Outlook 2007, but the principle is the same for almost all programs. (more…)

Having just launched a new version of our iPhone app very recently, I’m excited that we’re unveiling our app for the latest BlackBerry smartphones today. This latest launch of ours is in response to frequent requests from throughout the XING community.

It’s free-of-charge and enables smartphone users (many of whom are business professionals) to access their personal with much more ease when on the road. Besides access to all contact data and “News from your network”, the application lets you read and respond to all your XING messages as well.

One highlight that I am particularly proud of is its capability to synchronize individual contact data from your personal network on XING with your own address contacts on your BlackBerry.

Free download for BlackBerry smartphones at www.xing.com

In addition to English, the XING app supports German, Spanish, Turkish and Italian. The app can be downloaded for free directly to the user’s BlackBerry smartphone by simply by visiting the XING mobile website. Simply type in www.xing.com. The appropriate version for a specific BlackBerry smartphone model is automatically detected. The XING app requires an Internet-enabled BlackBerry smartphone running OS Version 4.2 or later with at least 64 MB internal memory and 170 KB of available memory.

Besides the new BlackBerry application, several other features are going live on our platform this week – all in response to user requests. (more…)