The Business Web 2.0

Hamburg-based XING increases members by 53 per cent, doubles profits.

It continues to be the case that while some of the more fashionable social networks like Facebook and Twitter continue to talk of only growth and that revenue is unimportant for them, the "first Web 2.0 to go public", business focused socnet XING, is proving that such businesses can show validity -- even in uncertain economic times.

Its latest set of results released yesterday saw membership grow 53% over the past year 12 months to 6.53 million, over half a million of which are paying subscribers.

Revenues for the first nine months of the year topped 25 million Euros, already exceeding the total for 2007 by 28%. Good news on profits too, which are already double 2007 figures at 4.72 million Euros.

This news contrasts with privately held competitor LinkedIn's announcement that it is to lay-off 10% of its workforce made just a week ago.

I often blog on the clear out that could well happen in the Web 2.0 world as those with no valid business model get "found out" and I often get criticised for lack of vision. XING's performance proves that such businesses can be valid if they chase real world objectives. Whereas XING is not the best known network, it is proving to be one of the most sound.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

Just a few weeks after LinkedIn announced an investment from SAP, Facebook and Salesforce.com buddy up.

If you don't follow Salesforce.com, it's their Dreamforce expo this week, where users and developers of the on-demand, cloud dominator wannabe all meet up and talk about how great their choice was. And Salesforce.com reveals some stuff that no one knew about.

It's already revealed it plans to offer website hosting through its on-demand Force.com platform (you'll find me commenting on this all over the web), but it was very interesting to hear about Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg joining The Ego himself, SFDC CEO Marc Benioff on stage for a presentation of a social network to CRM connector -- thanks to Bernard Lunn of RWW for bringing to my attention (full story at http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/8826).

It was fairly predictable stuff, the only real interest coming in what Salesforce.com would do and with whom to counter the recent investment in LinkedIn by rival SAP. The answer was to buddy up with the biggest name in social networking: Facebook is four times the size of LinkedIn, although doesn't share it's business only focus. I wouldn't have expected Benioff to settle for anyone less.

But is Facebook a place to be integrating business applications? Well Salesforce.com demonstrated an example where a recruiter is using their CRM application with Facebook -- cheekily, as LinkedIn considers itself the darling of the hiring industry. Still, this scenario aside, is this an admission from SFDC that they are strongest in B2C (business to consumer) rather than B2B (to business)?

I can't help thinking the alliance was motivated by headlines more than sound strategy and natural alignment...

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

LinkedIn adds apps in a move that seems to ape Facebook, but are strictly professional. The only problem is, they don’t work.

I am an avid LinkedIn new follower and Google Alerts gives me several stories a day to digest. Recently, I read a few bemoaning the way in which LinkedIn seems not to have developed any in spite of recent investments. Today, the soothsayers were silenced by a radical new addition to the LinkedIn business networking service: applications.

Now, if you’re thinking Facebook applications you will no doubt be delighted to read that sheep throwing and movie quizzes will not be something you have have to engage in with business contacts alongside your Facebook friends. LinkedIn’s applications are “productivity applications that range from gathering information that professionals around you are generating to enhancing your abilities to collaborate and communicate more effectively. You’ll be able to work much more closely with your contacts on LinkedIn” says founder and CEO Reid Hoffman in his blog.

Most are provided by external companies who have adapted their own services so they can run inside LinkedIn, but one developed by LinkedIn itself is Company Buzz. This tool enables you to see what is being said on Twitter about your company. It may be many people’s first foray into social media monitoring and if you ignore the fact that LinkedIn’s 30 million users are likely to be saying more about your company than Twitter’s 3 million users, it sounds like a useful application.

The problem is, it doesn’t work.

I just tried to add Company Buzz to my own LinkedIn profile and I got a message back saying it has technical difficulties.

Even when it does get to work, I am unsure how it actually is going to give me what it promises. LinkedIn says my Company Group is “Entel”, which is, in fact, a truncated version of one of my company names and not a company I work for at all (I already get irrelevant news headlines each time I log in). It completely ignores my current WeCanDo.BIZ entry. So when it does start to work I have a feeling it will be showing me Twitter entries for a company I don’t work for, and neither of the two I do.

Perhaps the real point is though, will these apps be enough to get the 30 million registered users coming back regularly?

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

Got a social network struggling to make money? How about climbing in to bed with a CRM vendor and charging businesses a fee to keep their data current?

It’s easy to get bored of reading press releases from social networking companies announcing new rounds funding. Okay, there is a little more novelty attached to them post financial market meltdown, but funding rounds still seems the only source of reliable income for way to many socnets.

So I could easily have written off LinkedIn’s announcement last week: the business focused social network raised $27 million blah blah. Except the detail was more interesting this time, as amongst the companies coughing up cash were SAP.

Now picture this: you use LinkedIn and have a few hundred connections, mostly buddies in former jobs. You go into LinkedIn to read what’s happening with them and connect up with the most recent joiners. But what if you could then press a button and the contact details for your whole network then move into your CRM system. As your relationship with those connections develops, SAP enables you to attach processes to them to ensure you achieve your objectives and no opportunities slip through the net. Neat. But best of all, all the customer records in your SAP are updated by the customers themselves! No more duff data.

This has made sense to me for sometime, coming, as I do, from six years in CRM to now run WeCanDo.BIZ, an online new business network for sales leads. When we launched in May, it was in the back of my mind that integration with CRM systems would be both simple and very compelling. Could LinkedIn be about to steal a lead?

Well, the SAP investment suggests I may not be alone in seeing this as a marraige made in heaven. I’m seeing the power of a system tapped directly in to public profiles where your target market and customers will happily maintain all their current contact details, as well as telling you their likes and dislikes (this could work just as easily on Facebook, where there is way more personal information to mine than there is on LinkedIn). So may SAP be, but I would imagine LinkedIn is seeing what it could charge SAP users for the live connection into its database.

So will SAP and LinkedIn set a trend? SAP isn’t the most prominent player in CRM: Oracle, Microsoft and young upstart Salesforce.com are all better established. The last of these is potentially better positioned to tap into online social networks, as it is a wholly online service itself. But who could Salesforce.com partner with? LinkedIn is out. Facebook is very consumer heavy although a large number of Salesforce.com’s customers are business to business. CEO Marc Benioff likes to innovate, so will Salesforce.com start their own social network (SocialForce?)? Well, with over half a million users they’d get a useful leg-up, but it puts them way behind LinkedIn or even European rival XING on 6 million users; non-Salesforce.com users would need good reasons to sign up to another social network.

Either way, I remain convinced that a connection between socnets and CRM is worthy of consideration by my company; and I doubt I’ll be the only one putting thought to it and looking for partners.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

WeCanDo.BIZ Business Networking Trends Survey reveals 92% would recommend their contacts network online.

The results of our recent survey on business networking trends reveals UK-based small business are avid supporters of online networking through sites, although some of the best known business-focused social networks aren’t doing enough to support the needs of the small business owner.

The survey was supported by over 250 participants, 83% of which were board level or proprietor, with 92% from firms with fewer than 50 staff, mainly in the UK (92%).

The most interesing findings:

- “Getting more business” was ranked most important reason for starting to network online
- 82% have a presence on business-focused networking sites like LinkedIn, Xing, Ecademy and WeCanDo.BIZ
- Two thirds say that networking online has brought them closer to their customers/intended market
- 59% have won customers or otherwise done business as a direct result of online networking sites
- 78% are open to purchasing from contacts made on such sites
- 92% would recommend their contacts network online
- More than half plan to increase their online networking activities, almost exactly the number who said they will increase their face to face networking going forward

Two VERY interesting pieces of information came out which I didn’t expect to see however. The first is that “Career advancement” was seen as the least important aspect of online business networking, directly conflicting with the core focus of professional networking sites LinkedIn and Xing. Both these sites represent members through a virtual CV and hiring or being hired are central to their offerings and key to why many people join. LinkedIn, with 25 million members, recently reported a surge in membership from staff being made redundant as a consequence of the recent banking crisis, presumably hopeful that new connections could be made through the site to get them back into employment quickly. LinkedIn seems not to offer the same hope for small business owners looking for new customers however.

The other interesting statistic is that business networking online is perceived as more effective in winning new customers than telephone sales cold calling, the backbone of new business lead generation campaigns since Alexander Graham Bell first stole the patent application. Telephone cold calling was ranked as sixth most important in generating new business, way below online networking, face to face networking and, indeed, web site optimisation.

The full report of results can be downloaded from the WeCanDo.BIZ website at http://www.wecando.biz/surveyresults.php.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz