Just after noon on November 18, 2006, OpenBC became XING and anyone who tried to access the OpenBC website was automatically redirected to XING.com. But it wasn’t just the name that changed three years after OpenBC’s launch; the entire platform was redesigned from the ground up.

A lot has happened in the five years since then, and the changes don’t just apply to the design or technology. When OpenBC became XING, the company (which continued to trade under the OpenBC for a while) had 70 employees and around 1.5 million members. As things stand today in November 2011, XING has 420 employees and over 11.4 million members, which represents huge growth both in terms of the company itself and its member base. The following screenshot illustrates how XING used to look when it went live back in 2006.

So November 18, 2006, was a major milestone in the company’s history and reason enough for us all to take a moment to reflect on the past. We’re always really happy to meet people at XING events who tell us that they’ve been with us “since it was OpenBC”. On that note I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone involved in making sure XING remains a success.

Update, Monday, 7.29 p.m.: Our search feature is up and running again! We apologize in advance if you experience any further difficulties. You may also encounter a few performance problems on certain parts of the platform, but please be assured that our team is working at full speed to ensure full reliability as soon as possible. We’ll also keep you posted with the latest developments.

Update, Monday, 9.44 a.m.: We’re currently experiencing a couple of faults on the platform. But don’t worry – our team are working hard to make sure that everything is up and running again as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing you and will of course you informed with the latest information.

Update, Sunday, 5.39 a.m.: Step two of the expansion of our data center infrastructure is done. XING is up and running again. Thanks for your patience. Currently we are fixing the search function.

In order to make sure that XING can continue growing in the future, we recently started to expand our data center infrastructure. This Saturday (November 19) we’re carrying out step 2 so from 10 p.m. onwards, XING will be offline for a few hours. But don’t worry – we’ll be working at full speed to get the platform up and running again as soon as possible.

To get the latest during the downtime, just follow us on Twitter @xing_com.

Today we published our results for the third quarter of FY2011 (interim report Q3 [PDF], press release). This is the first reporting period since our relaunch in June and since XING was added to the TecDAX in August. The figures again underline the growth course seen in previous quarters.

Following the major overhaul of our platform in June we’ve been busy focusing on gradual improvements across the board, the result of which includes the MINI job ad or our new Sales membership. Both of these features are targeted at specific XING users and provide them with major benefits to make sure that we cater to specific member needs while also making general improvements that apply to every member.

This strategy is certainly paying dividends as XING continues to grow in every segment of the business. This applies in particular to the new sources of revenue, i.e. business models in place alongside the conventional Premium model. In our core market consisting of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (DACH), we saw member growth of 19%, meaning that we passed the 5-million-member mark there for the first time. The 5.1 million users we have in the DACH region are proof that we have the most members in those countries, and we intend to consolidate this position in the future. (more…)

XING has grown a lot over the last eight years and we intend to continue growing so we need to expand the capacity of our data center infrastructure. In order to do that, we need to close down the platform from 10 p.m. this Saturday. We expect the work to last for a few hours, but will be working at full speed. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

For more information, please follow the tweets posted by our Twitter account @XING_com.