This is more out of sheer curiousity than it is anything else at the moment. But since I’m starting to use Twitter, I was calculated the number of people who follow me versus the number of people that I’m following on my Twitter. I’m currently following 48 people versus 57 people who are following me. This comes out to a ratio of 0.85.

There are number of assumptions and conclusions that we can come up with based on the ratio. I suppose if you have a large number of followers but a low number of following, say 150 to 50 (ratio of 3), then you are pretty selective in who you want to be in touch with.

Conversely, if you follow a higher number of people rather than being followed, then you may not be as important relative to those you follow as well. You could have 50 followers but you could be following 150 people which results in a ratio 0.33.

I suppose equilibrium is reached at or near 1.0

I knew those college math classes would help one day

What is your Followers to Following ratio? I welcome comments and further suppositions.

This is the current login message.

But this is what it should really say;

Why? Read on.

You know Facebook is getting out of hand when people do all sorts of stuff on it that they usually would not do elsewhere. Think real life.

I have a friend who recently updated her status to let me know that she is on PMS. That was a bit too much for me to know.

It’s amazing to see how some people were so hesitant to join Facebook as they were already on a bunch of other social networking spaces such as Myspace, LinkedIN, and Xanga. But when some of them join, they start to get addicted to various features.

I find this comical in one instance and yet sad in another. So I want to collect a bunch of stories from the Facebook crowd and see just how ridiculous the Facebook phenomenon has become. Please submit any signs of Facebook addiction that you have noticed via comments below.

So you know you’re hooked on Facebook when…

This a map of the new Rockville Town Center. It’s about 10 minutes away from my home. Ever since its grand opening a few months ago, it has been booming with people and become its own little community here in Rockville, Maryland.

Everything that you ever wanted to learn about online communities can be traced back to the proliferation of town centers.

Every booming town center has the following elements that contributes to its success;

1. A park. It’s a place where people can congregate and people watch and just feel like they belong. A park is part of the communal experience.
2. Shops. Shops are part of the commerce of a community. It’s where we buy and sell and exchange in commerce. A marketplace is needed to help the community thrive. Economics will always reign and it helps support the local infrastructure.
3. Restaurants. The ultimate and timeless experience. We break bread and have solid conversations over food. It nourishes our soul while we “connect” with others. Whether it is our friends, family, or co-workers, these are all people that make up our community.
4. Residential units. You can’t have a community and successful town center without people who live in them. Residential units such as apartments, townhomes, and condos are the ultimate in community building. They go beyond just encouraging people to visit the community. They tell people to stay for good and help become the community.

Wanna build an online community? Pretty easy. Just take a look at these four elements of a town center and decide what the online equivalents of these are.

What will encourage people to stay? What elements will get people to engage in commerce and improve their bottom line, assuming that is one of the goals of the organization. What will help people feel like they are truly connected to each other? What will help bridge the connection?

The proliferation of town centers is simply a reflection of the need of Americans today. There is an innate desire to reach out and be a part of each other’s lives. To touch and be touched. Connect, reconnect, and connect some more.

Is your community helping to bridge the connections?

Having been on Xing for awhile, I am exposed to various types of networking strategies that people use to find new contacts and further their business goals. I see all sorts of strategies that people use. Some have failed and some have succeeded. Most people are somewhere in between and the above scenario happens to alot of people. More than most of us care to admit.

In collaboration with Maria Sipka, director of online communities at Xing, I want to share what we feel are best practices to networking on this wonderful platform. Regardless if your goal is find a new job, find a partner, a supplier, or develop new business leads, Maria and I have compiled what we consider to be a list of best practices to help you achieve your goals on the Xing platform.

Admittedly, I got sick and tired of all the people who sent haphazard nonsensical connection requests to me that went something along the lines of;

“Hey, let’s connect.”

Grrgghhh. Not very useful.

It is our goal to make sure that the greater Xing community is better informed of what they should or should not engage in when trying to accomplish their own business networking objectives.

The first 10 tips are mine and 11-19 are Maria’s. For all things related to online community building, check out Maria’s Community Girl site. She’s on the verge of greatness, I tell ya.

To your online networking success,

~Maria and Dean

Maria’s Xing Profile. Dean’s Xing Profile.

————————————————————————–

1. Don’t be a promiscuous connector. This means that you really don’t need to connect to every person you run into. Business professionals value their connections and they don’t want be connected to someone who is connected to everyone. It creates the perception that you just consider people as another number. Be focused on the type of vertical or professionals that you believe can help you best. Maria would also add that your network becomes your most valued asset. Try to connect to members that are of genuine interest to you personally or professionally. Don’t become a connection collector. It weakens your network.
2. State your reason for connecting. Nothing is more annoying than to receive a connection whereby we don’t know your reason for connecting. Generally speaking, when someone wishes to connect, it’s usually because there is a commonality b/w the two of you. If that’s the case, state it so that the other person knows. Stating commonalities and mutual interests are solid ways to building up a relationship with another person especially when all of this is virtual. But please don’t sit there and request contact with someone with a one liner of “Hey- let’s connect.”
3. Know your goals. Online networking can be the greatest tool in the world or it can be the biggest time waster. This is all decided by how focused and strategic you are with your online networking activities. Are you looking for clients? Suppliers? Partners? Which industry are you targeting? Working out a basic framework of who your ideal contact is will result in more efficient networking.
4. Pay for Premium membership & use the search agent tool. It only costs 6 Euros or $7USD a month for premium membership. My favorite feature of premium membership is the search agent tool. Imagine a tool that notifies you of when someone who is a desired business contact joins Xing. That’s the search agent tool and it’s probably one of the most efficient networking tools available.
5. Complete your entire profile. I know this can be cumbersome and tedious to some but it’s important to fill out your entire business profile. Having a half empty profile makes it hard for others to figure out if you are someone they wish to do business with. Be as comprehensive as you can in filling out what companies and associations you have belonged to. Be sure to include your business interests and what you have and want as well.
6. Participate in a few forums. You don’t need to join every forum and post all the time, but participating in a couple forums every now and then helps build exposure to that business community. You create awareness, exposure, and credibility by responding in a thoughtful and intelligent way.
7. Volunteer to become a co-moderator of a forum. Find a forum whereby the membership consists of the type of people that you want to network with. Ask if you can become a co-moderator to the forum. You would be surprised as to how many moderators truly want the help especially if they have a busy forum. Congratulations- you are now in a position of credibility. As the moderator of a forum, you can now leverage your position by reaching out to new and existing members who can possibly further your business goals. People are always more susceptible to responding to a person in a position of power such as moderators of the community to which they belong.
8. Build commonality in your first encounter. The success of any relationship is built on a level of commonality that exists between two business people. I always get request from people wanting to ‘connect’ with me. Their request is a couple of sentences and that’s it! Where’s the real connection? Where is the commonality that exists between the two of us so that we may explore how strong of a relationship that we can truly build with each other? Make mention of what you believe we have in common and why we really really need to connect. That will surely stand out more than another request to ‘connect.’ Whatever that means.
9. Seek synergies, not sales. People don’t like to be sold to. Don’t bother emailing people with your services. It’s annoying and it rarely works. Instead, use Xing as a marketplace to connect with professionals who may work with the same target market as you do but provide different services. Seek collaborative partnerships with others on Xing. I love Akhil Shahani’s profile. In his ‘wants’, he states that he desires “co marketing opportunities with providers of products & services to entrepreneurs.” Now that’s a great invitation to start a conversation with him. There are alot of professionals on Xing who offers services to entrepreneurs and if they look at Akhil’s profile, they may feel tempted to reach out to him and explore any possible synergies which will lead to sales.
10. Tag for the future. Overtime, your network will grow and it becomes more difficult to manage your contacts. As soon as you add on a new contact, tag this person into various categories so it’s easier to keep track of her in the future should you need to get in touch. You can tag according to the vertical industry they work in, their profession, their expertise, or any other imaginable categories that you can think of.
11. Upload a photo of yourself that reflects the impression you want to create. People truly underestimate the visual impact of a photo. Response rates and clicks to your profile are always higher when you have a photo.
12. Check your privacy settings: Go to the ‘My Profile’ tab and then ‘Change my privacy settings’ in the bottom of the box on the left. The most important ones are the two at the bottom in respect to who can send you private messages and who can view your contacts
13. Set your info box options. Again, go to your ‘My profile’ tab and select from the left hand box ‘change info box settings’. My personal options include upcoming birthdays, quick search, group articles and events.
14. Contact information. Remember that you grant the level of access you are comfortable with to any member that wishes to connect to you or you to them. Unless you release your details, no member will be able to contact you.
15. Anti spam! One of the best experiences you have on this site is the lack of unwanted emails you get. Depending on your privacy settings you can choose who you want to be contacted by. If for some reason, you receive an email from an unwanted member, you can simply select ‘Block Messages from User’ in the left hand box featured when you view the message from the member.
16. Introduction tool. This is Maria’s favourite! Introduce your contacts to other contacts using this cool feature. What’s great is your contacts can view each other’s profile including yours which enhances their initial experience. When you’re viewing a member’s profile or message select the ‘introduce this person’ tool. The rest is simple. Be sure to include some nice remarks about each person.
17. Who’s been looking at my page! The coolest feature on Xing! This feature was created by a good friend of mine when openBC first came to existence. It was inspired by the dating sites and has become the most used feature on openBC. Go to the ‘Search’ tab and select ‘Members who have visited my contact page recently’. You can also set up an RSS feed that will automatically inform you when somebody has been looking at your page.
18. Include your website URL’s. Surfing through member’s profiles is like sorting through resumes. People generally look at the photo to get a first impression, then who the person is connected to followed by their company. Often the member will click on your website to get a feel for the company you are representing. Make sure your link is active. You’d be surprised how many aren’t.
19. Be found by the right people. Ensure your WANTS and HAVES reflect the type of people that you want to be contacted by. Members search for key words to lead them to the right person. Include all the key words that are relevant to you.

Scoble talks about Why Facebook is the “it” social networking platform right now. I completely agree and it’s what I’ve been thinking especially when he compares it to LinkedIN. He articulates it better than I can.

He says;

To tell you the truth, the reason Facebook is the better networking tool is BECAUSE it’s personal. I don’t really care that Danny is at McCann Erickson. I would have known that anyway cause the first thing Danny tells me whenever we talk is what he’s working on. He told me the day he got accepted into Cornell, for instance. That stuff just comes up in regular conversation. But I don’t remember his wife’s name, Facebook shows that (they just got back from their honeymoon). I didn’t know his favorite drink. Mojitos. I got just the place to take him for great Mojitos when he comes out to visit. Facebook shows that. And I didn’t know anything about his social network. Facebook shows that too. Looking at the groups he’s added I can tell a lot more about him. He’s into going to free movie screenings in NYC, likes BMWs, reads the Economist, and lots more.

Solid networking is based on the relationship and the search for commonality. True connections aren’t based on some quantitative number that some platforms says. Oh great, I have access to 2 million people through my 2nd degree contacts. What does any of that matter if I can’t even get my foot in the door because I don’t know what we have in common?

Successful relationships are built on the commonalities that we share together and Facebook does that well. We can explore commonalities and build those relationships far stronger here.

I notice that Leesa is done with her book cause she updated it her in profile. Or that Ross, Andrea, and Geoff are attending some upcoming social media event in my area. I can start a dialogue with them based on that. Or that Maria is about to launch her new company that might be relevant to my business goals. Great- that’s an easy way for me to start a dialogue and develop some business synergies.

I’m not saying that LinkedIN is dead by any stretch of the imagination. I still use the platform and would recommend it to others.

But that’s the reason why I log into Facebook everyday (and apparently so does half the Facebook membership); I want to know what’s going on with my friends. I want to explore how I can keep building and sustaining those relationships.

I was reading Chris Brogan’s entry on how he uses Facebook especially at it relates to business. He says;

On the flipside, I try my hardest to find a connection between me and the person I’m trying to connect. We’ve met at a conference. We know lots of the same friends. I’ll stretch it to as far as “I’ve read your blog for years, and love your work.”

Exactly! That’s been what I’ve been doing for awhile now. I seek commonality. Once commonality is established, the possibility of a fruitful relationships emerges.  Commonality => Connection => Relationship = >Relevancy => People who are willing to help you out.

We do business with people whom we know, like, and trust.  That can’t happen unless you have the proper information on this person. Facebook allows for that.

I was doing a search on Technorati for Xing.com news and I realized something. Most of the blog entries are in German– perhaps 80% or more was in German. It was hard to find anything in English.

And it occured to me as to one reason why Xing won’t be able to reach as many people as it can [especially in English speaking countries or other non-German languages] is that they haven’t found evangelists would be willing to talk about them just like their German membership do with their blogs. I’m referring to the online word of mouth phenomenon here.

I always see the comparisons to LinkedIN which aren’t always justified because they are two different models. Even LinkedIN has said so.

I know with LinkedIN, the poster boy evangelist would definitely be Vincent Wright and his multiple YahooGroups forums that he has spawned. He’s done a great job with evangelizing LI as the preferred platform of choice for business people worlwide. He probably has over 7000 members on all the Yahoogroups he manages. That isn’t much since LI has over 8 million members. But considering how fast and wide WOM spreads then you can start to see how much LI has benefitted and where Xing could benefit as well.

I could personally hold a debate with anyone if they tried to compare LI to Xing and make apples to oranges comparison. I enjoy both platforms but Xing is my preferred platform of choice since I’ve had success with it. In fact, I could probably devote a blog to talking about Xing but I really don’t have that time.

I think that it’s important for Xing to notice that and try to think of ways of how to best reach out to the non-German population, especially the connectors of the world who have a heavy say in how Xing operates and could benefit professionals worldwide. WOM is cheap and free and really the most effective way to market and build a great brand. As of right now, when some people mention Xing on the internet, they say, “Oh yeah, that site is mostly for Europeans or for Germans. It doesn’t fit us very well.” If you don’t believe me, just read the comments section at this blog entry that talked about the upcoming IPO of Xing.

Those statements have a negative impact because people are reading it and can make or break wheather they want to join the community or not. It’s a public relations issue. And that presents more challenges as to how Xing could penetrate other markets. The upcoming IPO of Xing will obviously give them plenty of cash to help with expansion but we all know that money can’t buy everything and that’s certainly the case with good old fashion word of mouth marketing.

Food for thought.

I’ve been moderating forums for the past couple years. Most of them have been successful ventures. But this would depend on how you define success? As of this writing, I run two different online forums at Xing.com- a social networking site for business professionals . I run a forum for Entrepreneurs and another for marketing professionals. One has over 2000 members and the other has over 400 members, respectively.

I don’t run these online forums to gain knowledge. At least, that isn’t my main objective. My primary goal to joining a business focused social networking site like Xing.com is to find business contacts. I find that running an online forum helps me achieve this objective at a much faster pace.

This is the typical motive for most moderators. When faced with the opportunitiy to increase our exposure, we would jump at the chance of having our own community. While this isn’t a bad motivation per se, I find that most owners of an online community fail to realize what type of work is involved in running one. And more imporantly, they fail to realize who is involved as well. The who is just as important as the what.

When running an online community, you need to know who your stakeholders are and what is important to them. In my siituation, there are three stakeholders involved in running an online forum. There is the founder, the co-moderators, and the general membership. The needs of all three stakeholders must be satisfied in order for the online community to continue to flourish. The needs of my co-moderators are most likely the same as mine– to find and develop new business contacts and contracts. The needs of the membership is most likely to engage in healthy discussion and gain knowledge related to the forum at hand. Between myself and my moderators, we all know how to engage and raise the participation of the forum. In the case of my forum, The Entrepreneurs Playground, it is consistently ranked as one of the top 7 busiest forums for English speaking professionals on Xing.

Having moderated successful forums in the past, I’d rank myself as being in the top 20 percent of network leaders who know how to run busy and successful forums. It’s no easy task, mind you. I’ve seen people moderate forums who could serve their own needs but couldn’t satisfy the needs of their community. And yet, I’ve seen other moderators serve the needs of their community very well, but go broke doing so because they couldn’t satisfy their own needs. I’ve seen discussions where moderators bragg that he has given so much of himself while not getting much in return. Note to readers who are thinking about building their own online community– don’t follow this model. Think win/win. It’s ok for you to benefit from your forum. It’s ok to use it as a proxy or vehicle for your own business needs. But before you do that, learn to identify the stakeholders involved and what their needs are. Once you identify the stakeholders involved, work out a win/win model whereby everyone involved is happy.

A thriving and flourishing community is one where people are involved, engaged, and connected to each other. The absence of this can often be traced back to the beginning where the owners of the community didn’t outline who the stakeholders are and how to best satisfy their needs.

Carsten Cumbrowski recently blogged about how he thought the new Xing.com [formerly openBC] may end up thrashing LinkedIN.com in the European market. It was a decent analysis but did have some flaws in it. That really isn’t the issue here. The major issue was what I saw in the comments section of the blog entry. If you read through the comments, you’ll find that Konstantin Guericke- a LinkedIN executive, makes some comments about the competition, Xing. See #7. I percieved it as just some innocent jabbing from the competition. There was nothing wrong with it. I even commented on Konstantin’s comments just to provide some fair play here. See #9.

But I was a bit bothered and concerned with Konstantin’s follow up comment on #10. The guy seemed kinda hell bent on wanting to prove that Xing/openBC was in troubled water by stating that Xing may have altered their actualy membership count. He ends his comment by saying; “Changing press releases after the fact is in my book not a good indication that things are going well . . .”

First, let me say that I have nothing against LinkedIN or Konstantin. I like LinkedIN and the value it adds for my business networking objectives. As I said in comment #9, I think both sites can coexist. If anything, there is room for more at the top.

However, I am just a bit perturbed when a high level executive of a major SNS has to go dig up some press release from the competition and try to make them look bad with some off the wall remark about them being in troubled water.

This is a bad PR move if there ever was one. Surely, we must know that we have more to lose than to gain by making such a comment on a public blog. What could you possibly gain by making such comments? Is he expecting that I or others are that gullible to believe such comments? Does LinkedIN management think so little of the public that they believe we believe whatever they say of another social networking site? In my estimation, this is a bad move on LinkedIN part’s to try and go out of their way to make the competition look bad. High school 2.0., if there ever was such a thing.

The irony in all of this is that while LinkedIN is trying to give a public lesson in public relations 101, they apparently can’t seem to follow their own advice.

If you read comment #11, you’ll notice that it’s by Bill Liao– one of the senior partners of Xing. The guy showed alot of class by ignoring Konstantin’s comments and addressing Carsten’s blog entry.

Lesson learned? Be careful of how you attempt to manipulate the public on the blogosphere because it could come back to haunt you later.

The moment that all 1.5 million members on openBC have waited for is finally here– the redesign and rebranding to Xing.com. The redesign went live on Saturday as to allow the developers time to fix any bugs that were still occuring. Alot has been said about the new redesign in various forums, especially within the Moderators Forum that I belong to. I want to take some time to write out a decent review of the new design and list the improvements they’ve made as well as some of the design aspects that they’ve taken a step back on. It is with some hope that they are listening to a more objective viewpoint rather than some of the emotional tirades that have been made on the various forums on Xing.
First let me list the improvements they’ve made and why these are beneficial to the user;

• Implementation of drop down menus for various sections. Drop downs are of great benefit to a design because they help make a design cleaner by improving white space and ridding the site of excess features that can overwhelm a user. Anyone who was using the old design knows just how overwhelming it was for a newbie. The old openBC site had very little use of drop down menus. If we take the member’s start page on the redesign, we notice that there are drop down menus for the “customize info boxes” and “search agents” on member’s start page.
• Improved structure and site architecture. There has been a remarkable improvement given to the redesign. One of the biggest angst about the openBC design is that it was not very user friendly. I even know of employees of the company who commented about that. Good usability relies heavily on clean site architecture. One of the improvements with Xing is that they focused on improving breadcrumb navigation with the main horizontal navigation. Users don’t feel as displaced as they may have felt before and they know where on the site they are.

• Color scheme and graphics. The green hues are the perfect color scheme for the new company colors and logo. The forest and lime green are great at clashing and harmonious at the same time. Green typically symbolizes money and prosperity. Xing also has more use of graphical buttons then the old design. This helps contribute to a more aesthetically pleasing design. It’s very Web 2.0.
• Stronger initiative to avoid incomplete member profiles. One of the challenges that many SNS face are incomplete profiles of members. There is no way to eliminate this but there are ways to help avoid high counts of incomplete profiles. openBC had alot of incomplete profiles especially among the new members joining. There were often complaints of how newbies felt that the sign up process was overwhelming. I took a quick look at the sign up process and it seems not much has changed. However, Xing has taken the initiative to give members a subtle nudge that their profiles may be incomplete in the ways of a status bar as shown here.

As you can see, my status bar shows that my profile is 86% complete. I click on the go button and it takes me to this screen.

I am now shown which areas of my profile is incomplete and prompted to fill it out. As it shows in the photo, the bolded areas are what’s causing an incomplete profile. In this case, I am missing a photo and need to fill out my interests. The status bar is a simple but effective way of avoiding the high counts of incomplete profiles that we find on SNS. More complete profiles result in more business productivity within the business community at Xing. Complete win/win.

Here are some other minor tweaks that were made that I commend as well.

• Additional business card view for our confirmed contacts. Aside from the typical list view that we had, the new business card view allows members to quickly glance at our contacts rather than having scroll down to see our contacts. The little graphical buttons beneath the photos has five features we can use. We can email the contact, skype them, introduce them to mutual contact, delete them as a contact, and download their contact info into our Outlook program. This results in allowing membership to use Xing as a more robust contact management system. Sweet move. Please note that I’ve whited out the phone numbers on this screenshot for privacy concerns.

• Increased size of member photos for our profile page and for the forum threads. I remember the old dimensions that openBC had of member’s pics on the forum threads and profile pages– it was too small. The new pics for our homepage is roughly 138 in width and 170 in length. I think the old dimensions were 75×75? The new dimensions are just right. I get to see more of me. As Katie Couric said, “There’s just more of me of me to love now”

Now, having discussed the good, let’s talk about the bad. Here are some elements of the redesign that I think the former openBC took a step back in. The first one that I am listing is the biggest mishap.

• Business details of a person’s profile page of a member is no longer above the fold. With the old openBC design, members visiting another member’s profile page were able to quickly glance at the crucial business details. Roughly 80 percent of the information was above the fold. With the Xing design, I must scroll down to see the rest of a person’s profile such as their company name, industry affiliations, interests, etc…We should have as much of a person’s business details above the fold rather then below. On my 17 inch screen, I can only see up to a person’s wants. Imagine how bad it must be for someone with a 15 inch screen. Pretty bad. This is bad usability. On a business networking site, a person’s profile is their digital identity. It is what most of us use to decide if we want to make contact with another business person. The new layout for the member’s homepage is the antithesis of this very belief for an important and innovative business social networking site like Xing. They are hampering the online networking experience of the membership by not having more information above the fold. I know some people may think this is a minor issue but when you consider the fact that most of us will browse and click around on a few new profiles on a daily basis, then you start to see that people don’t want to keep scrolling down for each new profile they visit. I’d say 80% of the business details is actually below the fold. This is the current look.

This is what I think it should look like. I took the liberty of rearranging some of the sections to make it look like something that is more accessible to all. As you can see, this suggested layout looks very similar to the old openBC layout for a person’s profile. Photo is on the left, with some contact date below the photo, and the crucial business details are on the right. The only difference from the old design are how the developers improved some graphic buttons and fonts. I know that a redesign is meant to offer something fresh and innovative. I applaud the designers for at least trying, but it is a better idea to settle for the older layout for the profile page or a variation of it. I think something like this is also nice.

This is the only real angst that I have of the new layout design. But for the sake of posterity, here are a few other minor elements that the redesign took a step back in.

• The most active and largest groups are at the bottom of the groups page. This decreases visibility for these groups and no longer serve a purpose if displayed down here. It’s a known usabilty and accessibility fact that the farther down an element is, the less likely that people will pay attention to it.
• Move the url of member’s website link back to the business details tab rather than the web tab. I like the idea of creating a new web tab and putting all pertinent “web information” there, but having a link to a business professional’s website should stay on the business details tab. If I want to learn more about the member, then I want immediate access to their company website. Anything that Xing can do to minimize one less click for the membership is preferred and only makes for a more enjoyable experience online.

Interactivty design is huge with online communities. Xing made some great improvements in this area and I hope to see more once the online drama settles within some of the forums. If you haven’t joined yet, here’s an invitation to join
With the impending IPO, rebranding efforts, and attempts to internationlize the platform into European, Asia, and U.S markets, Xing should give any business focused SNS a run for their money. LinkedIN is doing well with having just recently hit 8 million members and they are now turning a profit. Unfortunately, Ecademy is putting their site up for sale. Not too surprising considering they have only achieved 100,000 members in their 7 years of operation. Ryze is still lingering around with 400,000 members but the perception is that it’s been neglected by management for nearly the past two years. You know things have been going downhill when moderators have repeatedly brought up on their own forum as to whether Ryze is fading away on. I recall CEO, Adrian Scott, making a post within the site’s community board that he was starting to hire out his team in January 2006. It’s now November 2006 and he just made another posting to the community board that he is now getting settled with leasing out a building and now they will start building out the team.

I consider these to be the “Big 4″ for business focused SNS. As you can see, the market is wide open and Xing could easily achieve market dominance. They have strong technology, a scalable platform, strong base of 1.5 million members in only 3 years of operation, and a solid business strategy. And on a personal note, their employees are extremely courteous, bright and affable people. There are some who I’ve talked to over the phone a few times [Zhiyi Yu], exchanged a few emails [Justin Jowett] and I’ve at least met one in person [Maria Sipka].
I think this is one of the most most attractive and internationally-minded group of employees of a social networking company that I’ve seen. Or is it just me? You be the judge. See pic below.