If you’d like to take advantage of this feature you need to access our Beta Labs. As with all of our Beta Labs projects, the features there may change considerably during the course of their development. We are of course deploying various resources to continue developing the bookmark feature so that it can offer more options and improved usability.

We’ve now reactivated the option to add comments for people who organize and take part in XING Events! At the bottom of the events overview page you’ll find the option to add a comment and view comments posted by other people attending the event. That way you can ask any questions you may have or find the answer to a question you perhaps wanted to ask.

Have you received a message that was sent to several people? If so, when you reply the default setting is now “Reply to all” so you’ll automatically reply to everyone who initially received the email. This is intended to ensure continuity of the correspondence. You can of course choose to send your answer just to the sender. And finally there’s now a new form available in XING groups that allows you to reply to posts.

Have fun using the new features and don’t forget to leave feedback!

So you’re at a trade fair or conference and you meet some interesting people you’d like to connect with. Business cards are one option, but wouldn’t it be easier to just shake hands via XING? Well, our Mobile Handshake feature, released in September 2010, let’s you do just that. The Mobile Handshake uses HTML5 geolocation functionality in smartphones to allow XING members to add contacts via their browser or native apps (iOS, Android, BlackBerry).

The latest version of our Android app which we released today makes it much easier to add and share business contacts. Near field communication (NFC) offers users a quick and secure way of transferring data wirelessly over short distances. Anyone interested in adding a new contact can simply open up their XING profile on their smartphone and then hold it up to the smartphone of the person they want to connect with. The process involved in sharing other members’ digital business cards is just as easy, too (you might have to turn on the English transcript in the video below):

Technical Requirements

As you can see in the video, it’s really easy to exchange details. To take advantage of this feature, users need to have an NFC-enabled smartphone running the Android 4.0 operating system (Ice Cream Sandwich), currently available on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The “old” Mobile Handshake is of course still available and works on any platform.

Win one of two Samsung Galaxy Nexus

As we’ve teamed up with Samsung to present this new feature, we’re raffling off two Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphones. If you’d like to take part in the prize draw, just send an email to sweepstake@xing.com with “XING Beam” in the subject line and details of your most interesting mobile networking experience to date in the main text field. The closing data for submissions is February 6, 2012.

Event organizers will be happy to know that we’ve revamped the entire process which also includes much clearer input fields without the loss of any functionality (you can even add a photo now) so it’s easier and quicker to post events.

We’ve also been working on our recently launched Beta Labs project, which currently includes Polls and the Freelancer Marketplace. Here we’ve improved the usability of polls so you always see the buttons allowing you, e.g. to add more options, along with improved project navigation for the Freelancer Marketplace the option to add keywords.

Have you come across XING’s new share button with its enhanced statistics regarding shares, comments, clicks and more on a website you visited recently? Maybe you were wondering if you could implement it on your own website, too? Well we’ve got good news for you because you can! Here’s how to do it:

Share Button Builder

Go to the share button page that’s also available via the footer on www.xing.com to find the best button style for your site and to configure it to meet your needs.

Step 1 – Pick your favourite layout

Maybe you want to add a counter and our newly available statistics’ hovercard to your share button, or just stick with a simpler version for smaller spaces on your website. Either way, you can choose the layout that works best for you.

Share button with counter and statistics’ hovercard

The share button with a counter (available both in vertical and horizontal styles) shows the total number of shares for this link on XING. Our new hovercard offers additional statistics such as the total number of clicks, likes and comments for the link on XING. If you’re an Internet Explorer user, you’ll need to have IE 8 or higher to be able to access the hovercard. Anyone with a lower IE version will still be able to see the share button and counter, but without the hovercard.

Simple share button

The simpler version of our share button provides you with three layouts, each with a different size, to meet your needs.

Step 2 – Enter an optional URL

Usually you can leave the “Other URL” field empty and should only add a custom URL if you want to share a page other than the one showing the button. This may be of use to you, e.g. if you want to add separate buttons for various content on a single page. If you don’t add an “Other URL” here, all of the share buttons would share the same overview page along with the same statistics.

If the field is empty, the current website’s link is what will be shared on XING. So if you only want to share the website that displays the button, skip this part and go to the next step where you can select the button’s language.

Things to consider when adding a custom URL

If you enter a URL in the “Other URL” field, this is the link that will be shared on XING. Do not encode the URL as we encode it again before redirecting to the XING share form. If you encode it, it would be encoded twice, hence leading to an invalid link that cannot be shared on XING.

Step 3 – Select the button language

The share button is available in German and English, and this applies both to the button’s tooltips and the hovercard’s tooltips as well as the link on the hovercard.

Step 4 – Share button preview

In the preview section you can see how the share button will appear on a website – with all its functionality – in exactly the same way you customized it. So if you choose a share button with a counter and enter an optional “Other URL”, the preview will show the exact shares and statistics on XING for your given URL.

Step 5 – Copy the code to your website or blog

The code displayed needn’t be changed once you have customized your share button with the options stated above. So now all you need to do is copy and paste the code and then add it to your website’s HTML source code.

Things to consider when adding the code to your website

Please be aware of any erroneous escaping of the code by webdesign software or so called WYSIWYG editors and content management systems. If the code is escaped in any way, the share button might not be displayed or work properly. If you run into any problems you should check your HTML source code. The <script> tags should look exactly like the ones you copied from our site and shouldn’t be wrapped with quotes.

Step 6 – Adding data protection information to your privacy policy

We do not save any of your personal data when you access a website with the XING share button. We do not store IP addresses, nor do we use cookies to monitor your behavior with regard to the XING share button. For the latest privacy policy regarding the XING share button, just visit https://www.xing.com/app/share?op=data_protection.

Tell your users about it

You might want to inform your users about the safe and data protection friendly share button placed on your website. If so, just add the text recommendation to your privacy policy which is displayed after clicking on the share button page‘s “XING Privacy Policy text” link.

Step 7 – Enjoy the XING share button on your website

If you chose one of the counter options for your share button you will be able to offer the statistics hovercard to your users which provides a link to the detailed statistics page on XING.

Link statistics

Here you can check out the latest statistics for links shared and posted on XING. When entering the site by clicking on the hovercard’s link you will see detailed statistics for the page you came from. In addition, you can get statistics for any webpage by copying its address, pasting it into the URL field and clicking on “Search”.

Statistics for links you shared on XING

Your share statistics page lets you check out the latest statistics (e.g. the total number of shares, comments, likes and views) for all the links you posted on XING. You can access this page from the link statistics site.

Additional information

We cache the share counters and detailed statistics for every page. At the moment these values are updated every 5 minutes. If you share a link the caches for this website are purged and the numbers are updated. However, new likes, comments and clicks will still be updated in 5-minute intervals.

Feedback

How do you feel about the new share button? What do you think about the additional link statistics? What is your experience having implemented the button on your website? We would love to hear from you so we can make this feature even better.

Have fun with our new share button!

Troubleshooting

If you added the share button by following the above steps and are still experiencing some layout problems, we recommend you have a look at the following:

Q: Why is my share button hovercard not displayed in full (e.g. cropped either on the right-hand side or the bottom)?

A: The HTML element containing the share button might have some CSS styles that limit the share button’s hovercard layout. Please give the following two solutions a try:

1. Check the element wrapping the XING share button for styles that might interfere with the button (e.g. remove the style attribute “overflow:hidden”).
2. Provide a dedicated <div> element that wraps the share button on your web page. Once this element exists, you can change its styles to meet your website’s layout (e.g. “display:inline-block”, “float:right”).

Q: After adding the XING share button I get an error when validating my page (e.g. with the “W3C validator”). It was valid before, so what went wrong?

A: The XING share button code is written in HTML5. Your code might specify a doctype that uses an older HTML version, so please check the DOCTYPE tag of your HTML source code for a specific HTML version. In HTML5 no further doctype attributes are needed. Your DOCTYPE tag should therefore look like this: <!DOCTYPE html>

Improved content sharing thanks to the new share button

The new share button.

You probably talk about your hobbies and various other topics while you’re in the office or when out and about in the evenings. If you’re also keen on sharing information you posted on XING on other sites and vice versa, you can now take advantage of our new share button without losing any of your privacy or having to make a distinction between your working and private life. The share button is a simple way for you to share content such as your blog or third-party news articles with your XING network. To do so, the site you’d like to share needs to have integrated the share button, which is why we came up with a simple button builder that also allows you to get link statistics such as the number of clicks and shares.

Post status updates and share content on Twitter and Facebook

Some time ago we added the option to share status updates and items shared on XING (e.g. Company Profile recommendations or interesting group posts) on Twitter as well. We’ve now taken this a step further and added the option to share all of the above on Facebook as well, which of course helps you improve the range of your events, status posts, and much more.

All you need to do is enter your login details and authorize the feature and you can start sharing right away while maintaining full control over what you share with whom.

Company Profiles overview page

We’ve also been busy working on our Company Profiles overview page for non-logged-in users. That way companies can showcase their business on XING so that potential customers or employees not registered on XING can still see useful information if they come across the profile while using a search engine. This then grabs the visitors’ attention and encourages them to find out more. Profile managers can of course choose whether they want to take advantage of this option via the “This Company Profile is visible to search engines and non-XING members” setting.

More improvements to groups in the mobile web app

In the run-up to Christmas we added the option to access groups from the mobile web app (http://touch.xing.com). We’ve now taken this a step further so you can also reply to group posts while using the web app on your mobile device. We’ve got plenty of other developments in store for you, so watch this space!

I think I’d be going overboard if I tried to go into detail about all of the new features such as the lunch planner and MINI job ad we introduced in 2011, so I’ll stick to the highlights from our product strategy and the points I think are most interesting to you.

In June 2011 we overhauled our site by introducing a completely new layout that includes new interactions focusing primarily on network activity. Not only that, we also introduced the option to “like”, comment on, share and recommend content.

Just over a year ago we acquired amiando, a Munich-based company, in order to expand and simplify our activities in the events and ticketing segment. I’m very happy about the ongoing development of our PLUS events and the fact that amiando turned over more than ten million euros by the end of the third quarter.

In terms of innovation here at XING, we recently launched our Beta Labs – a platform hosting beta-stage projects that are developed at high speed and of interest to XING users who’d like to test drive them before they go mainstream. And let’s not forget that our API will be released in 2012.

No XING review would be complete without mentioning an increasingly important segment – mobile. This year we pulled out all the stops as our colleagues at Zühlke Engineering provided us with a Windows Phone 7 app, our mobile web app now offers access to group posts, and the Android and iPhone apps have also been improved in terms of functionality and usability. And we’ve got a whole lot more of this in store for you in 2012!

To round things off, our headcount has also changed considerably as we hired 100 new employees in 2011, meaning that we now have a total staff of 450. But we’re not done yet – so take a look at our current vacancies to see if there’s anything you’d like to get involved with so you can play a part in XING’s success!

I’m really happy about all of the new features now available on XING. But that’s no reason for us to rest on our laurels, and that applies to membership growth, too. With more than 5 million members in German-speaking countries, we have an excellent foundation that we can build on in the future. Nevertheless, I’d still like to see more people discover the benefits of professional networking on XING. As you can see, we’ve got a lot in store for 2012.

I wish you and your families a Happy New Year and all the best for 2012.

Sincerely,

Stefan Gross-Selbeck.

We’ve made things easier for our mobile web app users who access XING by going to touch.xing.com on their mobile device’s browser. Now users can access group posts and view new group posts either in their “Network News” stream of by tapping << followed by “My Groups” in the menu that appears. By the way, you can also “install” the mobile web app like you would with the native apps by adding a link to your home screen. And we’re still working hard to allow you to reply to group posts when out and about. Oh, and our latest Android app now also features the optimized profile, including an easy shortcut to phone people.

Last week we launched our polls feature within the scope of XING Beta Labs. We’ve now made two small improvements based on feedback we received from users. Firstly, the name of the person who created a poll is not only named, a link to their profile is also included so you can see who posted the poll originally and add a comment there if you prefer. Secondly, the total number of participants can now be seen by users who submit a vote.

And we don’t want to neglect all of the event organizers out there, so now we’re providing you with an editor so you can easily spruce up your event description text by adding headers and other forms of text emphasis.

On that note, we’d like to say thanks for reading this year and don’t worry – we’ve got plenty in store for you in 2012!

Launching today: XING Beta Labs

And all our staff’s efforts are so that we can present you with a whole load of visible improvements to the platform. These include:

•  Three Twitter accounts, via which vacancies posted on XING can be tweeted straight away. This will automatically increase the visibility and audience for all public jobs (apart from XING mini-jobs, which you communicate via status update). As well as the general @xingjobs account, you can also check out current branch- and region-specific vacancies at @xingitjobs and @jobsithamburg. In line with the ‘keep it short’ Twitter principle, these tweets are restricted to the position and also, where applicable, city, industry and salary.
•  A new platform for innovation. At XING Beta Labs, you can view and test our developers’ latest products – still in the beta phase but tested for security and major bugs, of course. You have the option to activate and inspect the individual features. As usual with beta software, the product can be used now, but some features may be missing or the design might not be quite perfected just yet. You’ll find further information in the Beta Labs, where you can also try out the first features: a marketplace for the self-employed and a tool to create polls – see below.
• Managing tags has been much improved – now you can rename, delete or merge entire categories, and we have also improved our suggestion function when tagging contacts.
• Following our latest update, users of our iOS app now have access to an improved and more expressive profile view, with links to instant messaging services amongst other things and a button for making direct calls, as well as better platform stability and faster loading times, especially for members with numerous contacts.
• You can now access the latest group articles on our mobile website http://touch.xing.com – directly via your network stream (‘Latest news’). And if you access links in the notifications in your groups via new answers etc. from a mobile device, you will automatically be directed to a mobile view. And of course we are working on enabling the writing of mobile group contributions.
• Once you scroll down a lot, a convenient link to take you back to the top appears in the bottom right corner of the screen.

Beta Labs feature: XING Polls

What’s the most-wanted Christmas present of 2011? Which app do you need on your smartphone to achieve the best productivity in meetings? And of course: which party would you vote for if on Sunday … users of our XING Beta Labs can now ask all these questions and many more – and receive answers from your network.

Creating a poll is simple; there’s now an additional ‘Poll’ tab right in the ‘Communication Box’, which is on the XING home page where you publicise status updates or links, for example. You can enter the question very easily here, whereby the following options are available to you:

• Maximum of ten answers.
• Are multiple answers enabled? (This would make sense for questions about presents or apps, less so for questions about politics or your favourite modes of transport.)
• Is the poll ‘public’? In this context, public means that this is visible to all of XING, not just your contacts network. Your contacts can always view and participate in your poll – adding a social component to your question.

Beta Labs feature: Freelancer Marketplace

With over 1 million freelancers and one-person businesses, XING has already become the place for freelancers and project managers to connect with each other and work together, for example in the enormously successful Freelance Group. We’re making it even easier to organise projects and to find the right partners for them with the Beta Labs feature ‘Freelancer Marketplace’.

You can post your project very easily, just choose the ‘Create new Project’ option in the ‘Freelancer Marketplace ’ n the ‘Jobs and Careers’ area (you must have activated the relevant feature in the XING Beta Labs), and then you can enter the description and requisite remits. Freelancers can now view your project and ‘bid’ for it with a price estimate.

You can get in contact for queries via XING Messaging. When you’ve found the right partner, just select them and close this phase of the project organisation. Like all Beta Labs features, the Freelancer Marketplace is in the early stages of development, and so is subject to change or further development.

We are officially ending the year with this multitude of features, but are simultaneously laying the groundwork for further improvements in the first few weeks of the new year. In the meantime, we hope the more adventurous among you will enjoy using the Beta Labs and wish all XING members continued networking success!

PS  This page could be especially interesting for the developers among you.

A lot has happened in the five years since then, and the changes don’t just apply to the design or technology. When OpenBC became XING, the company (which continued to trade under the OpenBC for a while) had 70 employees and around 1.5 million members. As things stand today in November 2011, XING has 420 employees and over 11.4 million members, which represents huge growth both in terms of the company itself and its member base. The following screenshot illustrates how XING used to look when it went live back in 2006.

So November 18, 2006, was a major milestone in the company’s history and reason enough for us all to take a moment to reflect on the past. We’re always really happy to meet people at XING events who tell us that they’ve been with us “since it was OpenBC”. On that note I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone involved in making sure XING remains a success.

Update, Monday, 9.44 a.m.: We’re currently experiencing a couple of faults on the platform. But don’t worry – our team are working hard to make sure that everything is up and running again as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing you and will of course you informed with the latest information.

Update, Sunday, 5.39 a.m.: Step two of the expansion of our data center infrastructure is done. XING is up and running again. Thanks for your patience. Currently we are fixing the search function.

In order to make sure that XING can continue growing in the future, we recently started to expand our data center infrastructure. This Saturday (November 19) we’re carrying out step 2 so from 10 p.m. onwards, XING will be offline for a few hours. But don’t worry – we’ll be working at full speed to get the platform up and running again as soon as possible.

To get the latest during the downtime, just follow us on Twitter @xing_com.