The objective group of this Social Network or Social Software consists of people who are convinced that their professional success depends to a large extent on the care of their network of contacts. Social networking can be useful today for all types of professionals, since 70% of vacancies are covered by recommendations. The largest part of the revenues are the fees for the 1 million Premium users that the network has. In addition, there are special promotions for users in the “Best Offers” section and job offers paid by advertisers.
Critics believe that users may make known to the general public, in ignorance of the possibilities and privacy settings, their relationships with other contacts. However, exhibiting a network of valuable contacts is increasingly seen as an advantage in the face of possible job offers, from other users and from the numerous “headhunters” that abound in the platform.
As it also happens in other networks of this type, the real importance of the contacts can not be evaluated. The relationships between these contacts are not qualified in a more detailed manner. There are also users who establish contacts with other users in an inflated way.
The functionality of a special search that many users do not know is the following: “Users who visited my profile recently”, which makes their own use visible to other users, be aware of this or not. In the past, many free users disliked that the basic functions, such as sending messages to other users through Xing, were limited to Premium users. To contact only one entry was left to the guest book or an invitation to be a contact. This has changed in markets such as Spanish since May 2009, when the sending of messages to contacts and other functions became free.
The entries of the users in the groups are available to the search engines, unless this is limited in the privacy settings. Thus, third parties can generate an index of user contributions. If said availability is limited through the privacy settings, it is not possible to quote the contributions of these users in responses by other users. With the publication of entry in the groups, the user assigns all their copyrights to Xing.