Xing

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 of 5 € (around 7.50 USD). 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 for social networking among businesses.

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.

About 76 % of all pageviews come from Germany, 90 % from the "D-A-CH" Area, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.