One of the crucial aspects of networking on XING are groups, which allow members to discuss, debate, and share information on a variety of topics and languages: industry-specific or generalist, regional or international. I am particularly pleased that as of today, we have over 30,000 groups on our platform. For that reason, I’d like to take you on a short journey through time, showing the moving and edifying history of groups (and of this blog). (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…)

You gotta love automated multiple choice menus. You know, the phone call to a company that starts with “Welcome to Giganitron Corporation. Please select from the following options. If you know your party’s extension, please enter it now.” (more…)

Welcome to the part three of introducing Scrum at XING. After explaining the basic considerations and challenges in the first two articles, this time we will discuss our procedures and results up to this point. (more…)

It is now about a month since we launched the beta version of our Company Profiles to Premium Members, and this feature will soon be available to basic XING members as well. We’ll be launching in three phases, to make sure we have enough capacities to reply promptly to user questions  – giving an additional 2 million members access to “Companies” every week, which they’ll find in their newly redesigned XING header.

Tens of thousands of members have been using the feature over the past few weeks and sending us valuable feedback on their initial responses and user experience. A massive thank you for this from the whole XING team! There’s good news to report too: The first features and changes to be made as a direct result of our feedback tool UserVoice are going live today. Here’s just a brief glimpse at some user-initiated changes. (more…)

Today we are not only starting to gradually increase the number of members using the Company Profiles, we are also completing the first major optimizations of this feature based on your feedback. Besides these large steps: if you are a Premium Member and send messages to several contacts, you will be shown how many recipients you can still add. The main view of your messages has also been revised so that it aligns with the new header better.

Welcome to part two of the Scrum case study at XING. After explaining the reasons for introducing Scrum in the previous article, today we will discuss hurdles associated with the transition. (more…)

Development projects on XING are very interesting, but can also be very complex and demanding. Just imagine: Hundreds of functions, 16 languages, a variety of payment systems, over 20 technical partners who connect to the website, four revenue streams and over 100 employees involved in developing the platform. At the same time, we have to be in a position to rapidly adapt to changes in the market or business conditions. (more…)

Hello everyone! My name is Karsten Rieke, and I’ve been a Product Manager at XING since 2007. Actually, my association with Europe’s leading business network started before that, both as a member, and as an HTML and CSS expert and front end web developer during the name switch from openBC to XING. (more…)

How well I remember that February two years ago, my first day at XING. On the usual first day rounds to meet the entire team, we stopped by the third floor to see the developers, all three of them. Back then, the entire company was housed on two floors; I was employee number 76. A lot has happened since that day. (more…)