LinkedIn’s Santa

This is the LinkedIn Santa telling you that upgrades are being made to the website. I love this Santa because it tells me that LinkedIn is working for my benefit! I love LinkedIn.

Add comment September 29th, 2006

openBC to become XING

Just received an announcement from Lars Hinrichs in my openBC inbox that openBC is being re-branded to XING – it’s a new name and a new design for the same platform. For some reason [ maybe because of the example that Lars uses, it seems like openBC is really pushing hard to get into the Chinese market - which is not a bad thing - just that the example of what the name XING means in Chinese really gives that impression ].

The reason given for the change in his e-mail is as follows :

Members also network on the platform in 16 languages, so we needed a brand image that carries meaning in different cultures around the globe. XING meets this requirement. In China, for example, XING translates as ‘can do’ and ‘encounters’. Besides these fitting associations, the name XING is cosmopolitan, innovative and unique – all qualities that reflect our community.

This is what the openBC header looks like :

There is a new website announcing the new platform XING – visit it. DO NOT forget to check out the sneak preview of the upcoming changes that should be in force before the end of this year. I most definitely like the colors of the new-look – much better than the dreary orange, dark teal and grey!

I for one, certainly welcome the change – maybe this will renew my participation on the platform, which has been extremely low since the last three-four months.

On another note, aside is re-designing too! Not a re-branding for sure, but the re-designed website is being tested on nainaredhu.com.

1 comment September 27th, 2006

LinkedIn Features

I’m impressed – slew of LinkedIn changes – and great ones at that – managing your “LinkedIn life” just got massively easier. Great job here. Some of the major upgrades are :

The web profiles have gotten more detailed and well laid-out – although it would be better if you turned of the “Full View” because a full profile makes the viewer scroll down 8 clicks on my 1024 x 768 screen, which is an awful lot. This is what my full profile looks like :

At the bottom of your profile page, there are these links “>>” and “< <" - see screenshot below:

You can click on these links to browse more profiles – although I am not sure whether these profiles come up in a random fashion or whether there is some sequence behind it – I would prefer a randomness though – you never know who you’ll find [ and with a membership of 7 million, that's a whole lot of random folks you might come up with! ]

Managing recommendations has gotten easier too

You can change your endorsements/recommendations whenever you want so that they are more relevant to the person’s current profile [ or your relationship with them ].

Recommendation updates – If you recommend a service provider to someone, you can choose to send the recommendation to ALL your contacts on LinkedIn – this is absolutely fantastic as LinkedIn is helping its members use the age-old and most-effective marketing tool “Word-Of-Mouth”! But I wouldn’t want to send an e-mail to ALL my contacts – only relevant ones – like people in the same location maybe. [ You can see the above graphic for reference on how to recommend someone - service provider / colleague or business partner - a fairly simple procedure but immensely helpful for the person recommending and the person recommended! ]

LinkedIn is also adding “some light tagging” and they will make the feature more extensive if people use it. [ Sounds fantastic to me - but their search function is already wonderful and powerful so I'm not sure how it will help the business side of things - unless I use tags for a very specific purpose - for example if I'd like to keep track of who all I've met personally and who all I've never even interacted once even via e-mail and I might want to drop them from my contacts - will have to try to see how the tagging works though. ]. But I was not able to find out how to do this – maybe LinkedIn has released this feature only to some random users or it could be only for the new contacts one makes – that I will find out only when someone sends me a connection request next!

And if you’re already not on LinkedIn, you should definitely sign on. It’s a great way to get that next job or client.

1 comment September 9th, 2006

Discounted Dreamhost!

FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY

If you aren’t aware of the DreamHost service, read more about why aside always recommends DreamHost.

To top that, now, aside is offering a discount!

aside has created a promo code with DreamHost and is giving away reduced hosting! The code is aside06 aside2006 and it will give you a discount of $10*minimum discount of $40 and maximum discount of $80* if you sign up for their monthly L1 and L2 plans, a discount of $20 if you sign up for their monthly L3 plan and a discount of $30 if you sign up for any of their yearly or two-yearly plans. [ Considering that their most popular one year L1 plan costs only $119.40 [ which in itself is a VERY reasonable price for the features and service they provide ], a $30 discount should be a great incentive to start you off with them.

These are the details of the discount:

Head over their website and compare their plans.

Add comment September 5th, 2006