Posts filed under 'openBC'
New Beta feature on LinkedIn.
That’s how the feature is visible on my main dashboard page when I log into LinkedIn – on the right hand sidebar.
That’s what the display looks like when I click on the sidebar link – it shows me people’s titles who have visited my profile in the last three days.
- It does not give me names of people – so there is no direct access to the visitor’s profile.
- Each result is a click able link that allows you to search for the particular person based on their title in their profile heading. Most people do not have a very specific title in their profile heading so search results tend to run into 500 for most of the queries. I got two searches where the results were 11 and 7 in number.
- It’s an interesting way to determine how much your profile is viewed. And who are the typical bunch of people who view it. Doesn’t give much detail though. Unlike in Xing, where they tell you exactly who came and checked out your profile – it has turned out to be beneficial to make a connection and even get business.
- You can also change your visibility setting where you can choose to either show your name and headline or you can chose to show your industry and title – these are called anonymous profile characteristics or you can choose to not show at all that you visited someone’s profile.
The feature is still in Beta – maybe they’ll come up with some additional functional and useful features like maybe showing us what keywords were used when the visitor landed on our profile.
May 22nd, 2007
Their homepage says that openBC will be back as Xing!
Brilliant! I can’t wait to see the changes they have implemented to make life easier for me as an online networker and as someone who runs an online business.
The announcement is followed with three screenshots, one of openBC from 2003 – 2004, one of openBC from 2004 – 2006 and one of the new Xing. Looks all good to me. Looking forward to the re-launch.
November 18th, 2006
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.
September 27th, 2006
Hooray! I believe openBC indeed gets it!
They now have a space where everytime you create a new contact, you can assign tags to the contact [ of course Christian from Visible-Networking beat me to the announcement - I only got to use the feature today - maybe because openBC has private releases or geographic releases phase-wise ].
And you can also search on the basis of tags under your “Contacts” page.
This is absolutely wonderful! Extremely useful!
I’m thrilled.
July 25th, 2006
I’m extremely pleased to note that openBC is catching up – and how!
They are introducing changes, new features and even a new design at lightning speed.
At the outset, the new design looks fresh and very welcoming as compared to the boxy interface that openBC currently uses. The new look feels more fluid and interactive and easy to use – congratulations to the design team currently working on it. [ openBC has opened up the design challenge to everyone who wants to take a shot at it - they want the profile page designed in three stages - one where the search engines will display the profile page, the other where the owner of the profile will edit it and the other where the profile page will be displayed to openBC members - there's prize money of Euro 10,000 ].
Other changes include AJAX in their “default settings’ where when you are connecting with someone and have to set the sharing of your contact setting, you can now choose the standard format and just click on “Apply Default Settings” – this is very convenient as compared to the previous multiple clicking on the so many check boxes! Excellent thought.
Now you can also search for people in your contact list based on keywords / tags – this is super cool because earlier it was next to impossible to go to your contact list and find the right person – the only way to do that was to use the general search function and put in keywords and geographic location and then sift through the multiple search results.
One thing I’ve been asking for all along is the ability to download all contact details of all direct contacts with one click – this feature has still not been provided and I am not sure why.
Another feature they should/could provide is the ability to sort through personal contacts on the basis of “last date of contact/communication”, “date of direct contact and network connection on openBC” – I feel that would be extremely useful information to allow people to stay in touch with existing contacts and to BUILD RELATIONSHIPS.
Another feature that I suggest is the ability to send an update to all personal contacts with one click – on openBC, currently, you have to send individual messages to each person separately – an additional feature would be the ability to classify personal contacts into groups – and then be able to send e-mails to that particular group.
openBC is definitely getting much better at networking!
July 22nd, 2006
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