XING

XING AG
Type Aktiengesellschaft
Traded as FWB: O1BC
Founded Hamburg, Germany (2003)
Headquarters Hamburg, Germany
Key people Stefan Gross-Selbeck (CEO), Neil Sunderland (Chairman of the supervisory board)
Revenue €54.3 million (2010)[1]
Operating income €11.5 million (2010)[1]
Profit €7.2 million (2010)[1]
Total assets €95.6 million (end 2010)[1]
Total equity €61.2 million (end 2010)[1]
Employees 300 (average, 2010)[1]
Website www.xing.com
Alexa rank negative increase 940 (February 2015)[2]
Type of site Professional network service
Registration Required
Available in Simplified Chinese, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
Launched November 2003

XING (named openBC/Open Business Club until 17 November 2006) is a social software platform for enabling a small-world network for professionals. The company claims that it is used by people from over 200 countries. Available languages include Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Swedish and Turkish. By displaying how each member is connected to any other member, it visualizes 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 to whom one is not already connected, can only be accessed by the premium members. Premium membership comes at a monthly fee from 6.35 to 9.95 € depending on the billing interval you choose and the country you are from.[3] The platform uses https and has a rigid privacy and no-spam policy. XING provides its paying members very easy email access to any members.

XING has a special Ambassador program for each city or region around the world with a substantial constituency. The Ambassadors hold local events that promote the use of social networking as a business tool, letting members introduce business ideas to one another, and get to know each other on a personal level.

XING competes with the American platform LinkedIn and the European Viadeo[4] for social networking among businesses.[5]

XING also offers the system for closed communities, called Enterprise groups with their own access paths and interface designs. The platform serves as the infrastructure for corporate groups, including IBM, McKinsey, Accenture and others.[6]

About 76% of all pageviews come from Germany, 90% from the D-A-CH area, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.[7]

History

IPO

The company went public (IPO) on 7 December 2006 with an issue price of 30 Euros. The Open Business Club Stock Ticker symbol is O1BC.DE and its ISIN number is: DE000XNG8888. XING became the first Web 2.0 company to go public in Europe.[15]

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.

XING plug-ins

Xing.com plugins are available for free download that allow contact synchronization with Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook,[16] Windows Address Book and Outlook Express. It also allows manual CSV File import–export and has a Firefox search plug-in.

See also

References

External links