From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| OPEN Business Club AG | |
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| Type | Public, Aktiengesellschaft (AG), ISIN: DE000XNG8888, Symbol:O1BC.DE |
| Founded | Hamburg, Germany (2003) |
| Headquarters | Hamburg, Germany |
| Key people | Lars Hinrichs, CEO and Founder, Eoghan Jennings, CFO, Daniela Hinrichs, Vice President Corporate Communications, Susan Kish, Vice President Network Advisory, Andreas Gehret, Vice President Engineering, Maren Gintzburg, Vice President Member Relations, Julika Capek, Vice President Finance, Dr. Neil Sunderland, Supervisory Board, Dr. Eric Archambeau, Supervisory Board, Bill Liao, Supervisory Board |
| Industry | Online social networking |
| Products | |
| Revenue | €10.1 million (2006) |
| Website | Xing.com |
XING (named openBC/Open Business Club until November 17th, 2006) is a social software platform for enabling a small-world network for professionals. The company operating it claims that it is used by people from over 190 countries, albeit the majority of users are Germans. Available languages include English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Dutch, Chinese, Finnish, Swedish, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Turkish and Hungarian. By displaying how each member is connected to any other member, it visualises the small-world phenomenon.
The platform offers personal profiles, groups, discussion forums, event coordination, and other common social community features. Basic membership is free. But many core functions, like searching for people with specific qualifications or messaging people whom one is not already connected to, can only be accessed by the premium members. Premium membership comes at a monthly fee of around 9 USD[1]. The platform uses https and has a rigid privacy and no-spam policy. Unlike many other networking websites, XING provides its members very easy email access to any members.
OPEN Business Club AG was founded in August 2003 in Hamburg, Germany as a German limited liability company by Lars Hinrichs. The platform was officially launched on November 1, 2003.[2] It was renamed from OpenBC to Xing on November 17th, 2006.
It gained much attention in German media and is widely used as a business-network in German-speaking countries. Membership from other countries throughout Europe and the Far East helped the network platform grow to more than 1.5 million members in July 2006[3].
Xing.com is a competitor with the American platform LinkedIn for social networking among businesses.[4]
XING also offers the system for closed communities, i.e. private clubs, academic clubs or corporate clubs with their own access paths and interface designs. The platform serves as the infrastructure for corporate groups, including IBM, McKinsey, Accenture and others.[5]
In March 2007, Xing purchased the Spanish social networking business eConozco and intends to merge its members into Xing over the next 12 months.[6]
In June 2007, Xing purchased the Spanish social networking business Neurona. [7]. Neurona users were migrated to Xing on March 31, 2008.
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[edit] IPO
The company went public (IPO) on December, 7th 2006 with an issue price of 30 Euros. The Open Business Club Stock Ticker symbol is: O1BC.DE and its ISIN (International Securities Identifying Number) number is: DE000XNG8888. The stock value rose by over 10% within less than two months to over €33.[8]
Xing became the first web 2.0 company to go public.[9]
[edit] XING Mobile
Xing.com Mobile allows users to access some of its functions using a mobile phone, PDA or smartphone. Standards supported: HTML 3.2, XHTML MP 1.0, WML 1.1.
[edit] XING Plug-Ins
Xing.com Plugins are available for free download that allow contact Synchronization with Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook, Windows Address Book and Outlook Express. It also allows manual CSV File import/export and has a Firefox search Plug-in.
[edit] XING Premium (Paid) Services
The Xing.com openBC Premium Groups were developed for major global communities, from university and corporate alumni groups to leading business magazines and multinational organizations. This social software offering enables effective management and growth of existing communities within the professional context of openBC.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Premium Account Upgrade, 2007-11-23
- ^ Xing.com Q&A Question 2. When was the company founded?
- ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2006-07-12 (German)
- ^ Move Over Silicon Valley, Here Come European Start-Ups By John Markoff, 24/01/2007, The New York Times, USA
- ^ LinkedIn takes on Xing, or the other way around! by Carsten Cumbrowski, January 29th, 2007, SearchEngineJournal.com
- ^ Xing buys Spanish business social network 27 March 2007, e-Consultancy.com
- ^ Neurona Joins XING 22 June 2007, Xing.com
- ^ LinkedIn takes on Xing, or the other way around! by Carsten Cumbrowski, January 29th, 2007, SearchEngineJournal.com
- ^ Web 2.0 company Xing raises €35.7 million in IPO by Graham Charlton, 12. Dec 2006, e-Consultancy.com
[edit] External links
- XING public entry site
- Company weblog
- Company information and press releases (source of membership numbers, languages etc.)
- Wellington Partners Venture Capital
