XING is a Hamburg-based career-oriented

social networking site A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

, operated by New Work SE (until mid-2019 ''XING SE''). The site is primarily focused on the German-speaking market, alongside XING Spain, and competes with the American platform LinkedIn.

Company history

OPEN Business Club AG was founded in August 2003 in Hamburg, Germany by

Lars Hinrichs Lars Hinrichs (born 18 December 1976, Hamburg, Germany) is a German entrepreneur and investor. Hinrichs is best known as the founder of XING, a Germany focused, but worldwide available, social networking website dedicated mostly to cultivating b ...

. Its official debut was 1 November 2003. It was renamed XING in November 2006. In its early years, the site pursued a global strategy; however, since 2012, XING has focused on the German-speaking market, as 76% of all XING page views come from Germany and 90% come from the

D-A-CH This article details the geographical distribution of speakers of the German language, regardless of the legislative status within the countries where it is spoken. In addition to the German-speaking area (german: Deutscher Sprachraum) in Europe, ...

area.

Leadership

Lars Hinrich led the company as CEO until 2009, when he was succeeded by Stefan Groß-Selbeck. Thomas Vollmoeller has served from 2012 and was succeeded by Petra von Strombeck in 2020.

Number of users

As of April 2019, XING reported 16 million members, up from 10 million members in the

area in March 2016, which at that time included 880,000 premium members.

Ownership and acquisitions

In November 2009,

Hubert Burda Media Hubert Burda Media Holding is a German media group with headquarters in Offenburg. It originated as a small printing business, founded by Franz Burda Snr in Philippsburg, in 1903. In 1986, the corporate group was divided up between Franz Jnr, ...

acquired 25.1% of XING, becoming its main shareholder. In 2010, XING acquired online event management company Amiando, changing its name to XING EVENTS. In 2012, Burda increased its shareholding to over 50%. In 2013, XING acquired Austrian e-recruiting company Kununu. In 2015, XING announced a cooperation project with eyeson, a unified communications provider. In 2017, XING acquired global expat network InterNations and Austrian recruitment company Prescreen. In April 2019, XING paid €22 million for Honeypot, a Berlin-based IT job platform.

IPO

XING became the first Web 2.0 company to go public in Europe, debuting on 7 December 2006 at an issue price of 30 Euros per share.

Website

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. The platform uses

and has a rigid privacy and no-spam policy. 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 A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

as a business tool, letting members introduce business ideas to one another. 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

area (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). As of 15 September 2017 XING has changed its legal status to become a Societas Europaea. If a user wishes to change their name, additional proof is demanded. In case of affirmation of gender for transgender people given names and gender will not be changed without medical testimony or provision of court documents confirming the person's transition in a medical or legal context.Stock response of „Team Quality and Security“ of Xing AG to affected personsStock response of Head of Customer Service of Xing AG to affected persons If gender is reassigned, birth names are removed, which is legally required, because any disclosure or investigation would be illegal under German law, as per Sec. 5 para. 1 and Sec. 10 para. 2 Transsexual Act.

Revenue

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,Tutorial: Connecting Social Networks with Outlook
(German) Windows Address Book and Outlook Express. It also allows manual CSV File import–export and has a Firefox search plug-in.

Recruitment

Since October 2007, XING has run a job marketplace for candidates and recruiters. Alongside fixed-price job ads, XING was one of the first German job boards to use a pay-per-click payment model, where the cost of an ad is based on user views

References

External links

* {{Authority control Companies based in Hamburg Professional networks German social networking websites 2003 establishments in Germany Employment social networks Companies in the TecDAX