Starting today tomorrow the XING profiles will be even more compatible for students and graduates than ever. If you’re a student, you can now make your education more prominent, just by selecting the status field “recent graduate/student” – and have your college address serve as your business address.

 

The best part is the flexibility of it all: when you get a full time job, start a business, or start working freelance, all you have to do is change your status – and your profile will convert automatically! Likewise, if you’re a professional returning to school for an advanced degree, you can switch your status from ‘employee’ to student without losing any of your profile data.

As a XING member I like to know as much as possible about my network and my contacts. I’m always interested to find out where they are, what they’re up to and what business they’re involved in at the moment. And it seems many fellow networkers feel the same way: Large numbers of our members have asked for the new status feature that goes live on the platform today. From now on, Premium Members will be able to enter their current status in a brand new field at the top right-hand corner of their profile. You can use this space for example to let people know that you’re at a conference in city XY, that you’re available for work or busy if you’re a freelancer, or that you’re in the office, working from home, or on a business trip. Individual members decide for themselves who they want to share this information with – your settings let you choose whether you want to display your status to all members or just your personal contacts. You can also decide whether you want your status displayed in the “What’s new in my network” ticker as well. At the same time you have the choice of whether you want to see your contact’s status messages in your infobox. The big plus is: You’re kept in the know without having to actively search for information, so you always aware of exactly what’s happening in your network at any one time.

I’m really intrigued to see what members’ reactions will be to the new status feature. Lots of insightful status messages appeared on my start page ticker when the XING team was testing it. Your network suddenly becomes even more closely knit, and there’s a constant stream of information that often proves really useful in your daily work.

Ever wanted to contact a friend in the States or a business partner in China, but weren't sure what time it is in LA or Beijing? Last Friday we launched a new mini function which can help you in such cases: When you look at a XING member profile, you see the person's local time, based on information in their profile. Now you can see at a glance wether you catch your contact during business hours or more likely sound asleep at night. International business people benefit most: the more international phone calls you have to do the more you will appreciate this feature!

Hazel says

It goes without saying that everyone’s network has a certain “value”.  Your contacts can come in handy, when you’re facing new deals, jobs, employees, salary negotiations, etc. But how much is your network worth exactly? Based on numerous studies, research and experience – www.mynetworkvalue.com can give you an indication on how much your network is worth.

Our microsite is the basis for our new integrated marketing campaign, which has been running for over a week in Germany and soon to come in other European countries and the US. As a social network the monetary value of a network is a very exciting question and we hope we can fire up discussions and comparisons with our calculations. Below you can see an example of an online ad and a screenshot of the microsite.

Take the test now!

Felix Menden, VP Product & Engineering:

You have just bought an iPhone and have no idea what to use it for? We suggest: Turn your iPhone into a networking engine. Just direct iPhone to iphone.xing.com and run your favorite business network with a fingertip. This Friday we will launch a dedicated mobile version of XING for the iPhone. It will contain the areas Start, Members, Messages, and Address Book in an iPhone-like fashion.

By making mobile internet easy to use, the iPhone creates a milestone on the road to convergence. XING is commited to its innovative DNA and has spent a lot of time lately tackling the iPhone topic. Actually, why does XING bother doing a dedicated version for the iPhone? Is the current XING mobile version not enough?

The answer is quite simple: A finger is not a mouse pointer.

This is why the current design of XING mobile works on an iPhone but does not optimally serve the user’s needs. Almost every website surfed with the iPhone is not prepared for it. That means a lot of scrolling, zooming, and accidentally hitting the wrong link. One gets used to it and it is definitely fun. But then compare it to a regular browser: the discovery is that on an iPhone the most time is wasted by navigating around on a single page instead of navigating between pages. Compare this user experience to the experience of a native iPhone application and you know what the situation is: Websites are optimized for the use with a regular browser and mouse pointer. Moreover, the current mobile portals are optimized for cursor-keys, cell phone keyboards, or blackberry balls - Not for touchscreens.

That is why the user interface of an iPhone is a new journey and an exciting task for a usability engineer. At XING we have taken this step by adapting to this novel user-interface and thus exploring a probable trend in human-computer interaction. The new interface gives an iPhone addict real value. Try it out!

Felix Menden, VP Product & Engineering:

There is still a long way to go on the road to convergence. But something tells me mobile Internet will be the next technological wave bringing with it innovative disruption to the online world. Cutting-edge services will be envisioned which may have significant economic impacts. The role mash-ups will play in the future in combination with location information opens up inapprehensible scenarios of the way we will work and live in the future. Driving along the road to convergence, XING is currently the only professional network that also runs on a cell phone demonstrating the innovative power of its platform. XING Mobile is the professional network in the palm of your hand. Just picture the following three situations:

Lost in Lower Manhattan and you quickly need the contact data of your business partner you have met ages ago?

Hot summer nights in Barcelona and you need a Spanish freelance web designer for your project tomorrow?

On a train to Zurich not knowing where to start looking for a new job?

You want your professional network to help you battle these challenges.
You want your network on the go, now!
You want XING Mobile. 

Today we will re-launch XING Mobile, meaning XING will run on your cell phone, PDA or BlackBerry. XING mobile allows you to surf on XING with your mobile device. Just direct your mobile to www.xing.com and you will be redirected to our mobile portal. With new and improved usability for fast and convenient usage we want to give all XING members the power of having their professional network accessible anytime and anywhere. Try it out and find contacts and members with our powerful one-slot-search using your cell phone. Access your address book and surf our Marketplace while sitting on the Spanish Steps in Rome. Read and write private messages and manage your event schedule while waiting at Heathrow.

Watch out next week because we will even add a launcher for your individual cell phone! After the easy installation from the XING Mobile homepage, it will take you just a single click on the XING icon, found in the menu, to log you in. This means you can avoid re-entering your password and username each time you log on to XING Mobile. You will also be able to set your preferred start area and invite your business contacts while on the go. 

The future is a step closer now.

If you type your name into Google and have a look at the results, you'll probably see entries associated with your name that you weren't even aware of.

One simple tool to actively manage your online identity is your XING profile page. Choose the setting „Allow search engines to find my profile” and you can determine what people see and read about you.

If you would like some advice on how to best fill in your data and make the most of your profile, the XING book might be useful for you, particularly Chapter 3. You can get a taste here.

The German poet Heinrich Heine once said, “Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.” Now you can share that perfect feeling with your customers, business partners, employees, or with anyone you feel like, thanks to Fleurop.com, one of the many PremiumWorld partners at XING. Premium Members will now save 15% when they order flowers and gifts online, in over 160 countries around the world. If you want to keep a corporate focus you can always order a bouquet in your company’s colors. Ahh, lovely XING dark green stems topped with radiant white blooms... ;-) 

Check out the PremiumWorld Fleurop offer, and don’t wait too long to make someone happy!

The first 15 books were gone in 4 minutes: Today we started giving away free copies of  "XING - Das Buch" to the XING Ambassadors and XING moderators. While the Ambassadors got free copies to give-away at their up-coming live events, the moderators could apply on behalf of their group.

The first five speedy moderators who responded to today’s posting in the moderator group received three copies for their groups. They will be up for grabs in a little XING quiz - so make sure you keep an eye out for the quiz in your group.

If you missed out this time – don’t worry! We’re giving moderators two more chances over the next six days to get their hands on these sought-after books, which have even been signed by Lars Hinrichs himself.

Here are the results of our little XING book poll:

32% of the 104 voters reported that they would like to read more. You can either go and buy the book, or watch out for available copies in your XING groups: During the next two weeks, we will be giving away free copies to group members. Moderators can apply on behalf of their group in the moderators’ group - watch out for a posting coming soon.

30% of the voters said “Great, but don’t need it”. If you’ve been a XING member for quite a while and know the platform inside out, the book isn’t essential reading. Please bear in mind that the book was written predominantly with new members in mind – users who are keen to learn more about how to use the functions and features, and what benefits they can gain.

18% said they would like to read “XING – Das Buch. Netzwerken leicht gemacht“ in English – We are currently discussing the possibility of publishing an English version. 20% said they would prefer to read a Jane Austen novel – but they might change their mind once they’ve won the XING book!:)

Christophe explains the interface of openBC and how he uses it.

Geez, that´s easy. Please welcome another "star" to our series of openBCs´personalized RSS feeds

https://www.openbc.com/protect/companychanged https://www.openbc.com/protect/companychanges

and give your feed reader something he can´t live without. Some of us tested feedreader 3.0 today to see if it can handle secure RSS and it seems that it worked fine. I am still busy with testing out your recommendations. ;-)

Today we are facing a serious slowdown of openBC.com. The reason is our partner for SSL-Handshaking is having issues.

We are working on resolving this issue. If you manage to login, please keep that window open, rather than closing it and opening a new window later.

We made your individual data sharing on openBC even simpler!

1. Simply click on the "Edit shared personal info" option in the left-hand menu on any contact page you wish.

2. By clicking on the individual sub-headings here you can now gain direct access to be able to change all of these settings at any time.

3. Nope...nothing more to do :-)

I am a mummy since 13 weeks now and let´s face it, not only my babygirl is growing, time flies at top speed!

Last weekend I really took some minutes off from changing nappies and removing stains, to give my contacts on openBC some extra (social) treatment. And whilst surfing openBC, I found this feature "contacts whose company or position has recently changed".

If you are busy like me (or even more ;) ), you will love that feature, promised! You can see at one glance what has changed...awesome.

It really rocks! Try it.

cheers, Daniela

For non-members, openBC newbies and everyone else who likes to get a general idea of what openBC has to offer,  the new Guided Tour might just be the right thing. If you are logged out and go to the openBC homepage you'll find the Guided Tour in the middle of the page as usual.  Looks the same on  the outside, but is completely new on  the inside. The flash-tour has been replaced by a  HTML-tour  that allows you to browse through the pages, a  navigation on the left hand side helps you to find the information that is relevant for you.  Screenshots illustrate the functions and benefits being explained. The good thing about it: The new static variant of the tour enables us to easily adapt to new functions and features on the platform.

So I am now a denizen of the Fair city of Hamburg and I have to say I am very inpressed by the level of art and culture here and am looking forward to spending more time in this little metropolis.

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a play "The man without a past" "Der Mann ohne Vergangenheit" the level of innovation and the quality of the performances were superb.

I have to say that without our site I wouldn't have been able to so quickly find people to accompany  me  as though I have  been in Hamburg before I  have not really spent any time  on my own  recogniscense  and  it was great to be able to  reach out  to people here thorugh my network so easily.

I also had a great meal at Vapiano and discovere that the Maitre'd is also an openBC member.

It just shows me that the world is getting smaller.