XING

XING AG
Type of business Aktiengesellschaft
Type of site
 Professional network service
Available in Simplified Chinese, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
Traded as FWB: O1BC
Founded August 2003 (2003-08)
Hamburg, Germany
Headquarters Hamburg, Germany
Key people Dr. Thomas Vollmoeller (CEO), Stefan Winners (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 649 (2014)[2]
Website www.xing.com
Alexa rank Negative increase 1020 (December 2015)[3]
Registration Required
Launched November 2003

XING (named openBC/Open Business Club until 17 November 2006) is a career-oriented social networking site for enabling a small-world network for professionals. The company claims that it is used by people from over 200 countries. Available interface languages include Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese 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.[4] 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[5] for social networking among businesses.[6]

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.[7]

About 76% of all pageviews come from Germany, 90% from the D-A-CH area (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).[8]

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.[12]

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,[13] Windows Address Book and Outlook Express. It also allows manual CSV File import–export and has a Firefox search plug-in.

Criticism

The company's official demeanour regarding name changes is problematic. If the circumstances leading to the change are not one of the most common, additional proof is demanded. These unusual cases are easily spotted by Xing, due to dedicated fields for data entry being present in case of marriage (maiden name) and academic titles. In case of transsexuals however, given names and gender will not be changed, unless medical expert evidence or court documents are provided, which offer proof of an assured medical diagnosis or file reference to a court ruling in regard to a name change case, respectively.[14][15] If the changes are carried out, birth names are removed, which is legally required, because any disclosure or investigation would be illegal under the purview of German law, as per Sec. 5 para. 1 and Sec. 10 para. 2 Transsexual Act.[14][15]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Annual Report 2010" (PDF). XING. Retrieved 19 November 2011.
  2. ↑ "Annual Report 2014" (PDF). XING. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  3. ↑ "Xing.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-11-15.
  4. ↑ Premium Account Upgrade, 18 March 2014
  5. ↑ The Economist Does local beat global in the professional-networking business?
  6. ↑ Move Over Silicon Valley, Here Come European Start-Ups By John Markoff, 24 January 2007, The New York Times, USA
  7. ↑ LinkedIn takes on Xing, or the other way around! by Carsten Cumbrowski, 29 January 2007, SearchEngineJournal.com
  8. ↑ http://linkedinsiders.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/linkedin-the-next-big-xing-businessnetzwerke-in-deutschland-2012/
  9. ↑ Lars Hinrichs on Twitter.com
  10. ↑ Xing.com Q&A Archived 6 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Question 2. When was the company founded?
  11. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2006-07-12 Archived December 1, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
  12. ↑ Web 2.0 company Xing raises €35.7 million in IPO by Graham Charlton, 12. Dec 2006, e-Consultancy.com
  13. ↑ Tutorial: Connecting Social Networks with Outlook (German)
  14. 1 2 Stock response of „Team Quality and Security“ of Xing AG to affected persons
  15. 1 2 Stock response of Head of Customer Service of Xing AG to affected persons
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