TipDrop.com is a place where people come to give and receive tips on just about anything. In fact, in its first five days the site has had 1,000,000 page views and more than 3,000 tips.

Do you want tips on the best new digital camera to buy? Need tips on how to drive traffic to your Web site? Check out TipDrop.

“Many other micro blogging sites are flooded with useless information about what people had for breakfast or when they walked their dog,” Jonathan Leger, creator of TipDrop.com, says. “And, while that’s fine for friends and family, most people could care less.”

TipDrop takes a fresh approach to how information is shared. People who participate in TipDrop do not want to read inane bits of information; they want credible tips. TipDrop also serves as a platform for people to showcase their personal areas of expertise.

So, how does it work? People post tips that relate to specific topics found in tip sheets. For instance, a user might create a tip sheet with the title, “How to save money in a down economy” and another user might add a tip that advises, “Pack your lunch instead of eating out when at work.”

As more users add more tips, the tip sheets become valuable sources of information. And, to keep the best tips on top, users can vote. This raises/lowers the credibility of tips, tip sheets and the users who created them.

The whole system is built around what Leger refers to as a “credibility engine.” A user’s credibility level determines his or her tips and tip sheet credibility in ranking order. And, as users improve their credibility and ranking, their votes become more powerful.

“All of this works to keep the best on top and the spam and junk out of the system,” Leger adds.

Another advantage of TipDrop is that many other micro blogging sites limit characters. For instance, Twitter is limited to 140. TipDrop allows for 255 characters which is typically enough space for a quality tip.

“Ultimately, I took the best of what many social media and informational sites had to offer and created TipDrop.com to build valuable, topic-driven content,” Leger explains.

For more information: www.TipDrop.com.

Seekopia.com, a new social network for bloggers today celebrated being online for 100 days since launching last April. Still in Beta, Seekopia is currently advertising to a very limited audience but has nonetheless already attracted close to 400 bloggers and over 750 posts have been submitted to date.

Asked about the numbers, Seekopia founder Mr. Marc von Brockdorff said: “While the numbers are nowhere close to other online networks like Facebook or Twitter, we are completely on target considering we have chosen a very limited market for our Beta release. In fact, I would probably say the feedback has been even better than expected. Social Networking for bloggers is something relatively new and we believe it’s the next step in the Blogging world.”

Seekopia allows bloggers to start their own blog or import an existing one for free. However, its primary feature is an online blog magazine which allows users to view posts from multiple blogs customized to their preferences. “The aim is to create a platform on which users can find blogs easy and quickly by choosing what topics they enjoy reading. Instantly, Seekopia will customize itself to become a blog with several posts from several blogs, all related to the topics of your choice.” Mr. Marc von Brockdorff admits that there is still a lot of work to be done but firmly believes that Seekopia is moving in the right direction.

Another benefit Seekopia provides is its shared advertising system. Bloggers who sign up may advertise on each and every Seekopia blog. Unlike other PPC companies which charge per click, advertising on Seekopia is free of charge and your adverts are shown based on how much you have written on your blog, how often you write, and the overall quality of your posts.

Social Media expert Michael Azzopardi commented “In essence, this is changing the way advertising works online. It’s a bold move and no doubt it will take a while for its real benefits to appear. I don’t think anyone has attempted anything similar before so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.”

Mr. Marc von Brockdorff confirmed Seekopia will launch officially by the end of the year but several other features are in the pipeline and should be online shortly. He concluded by saying: “We take our feedback very seriously – In fact, I’d say around one forth of our features were suggestions by members.”

For more visit: http://www.seekopia.com

Digital River, Inc. (NASDAQ:DRIV), a leading provider of global e-commerce solutions, introduced a new B2B e-commerce solution called Business Direct. Through Business Direct companies can offer their global resellers, and business customers and partners private online portals for making direct purchases and renewing subscriptions. The login-based portals complete with tailored purchasing plans, custom pricing and financing options, are designed exclusively to help companies strengthen business relationships and increase their online sales.
“Today’s challenging market conditions call for companies to examine their prospective revenue streams and expose those that are untapped,” said Joel Ronning, Digital River’s CEO. “With Business Direct, we can help businesses efficiently unlock the revenue potential in the B2B market and turn their business relationships into long-term partnerships that continue to generate sales on an ongoing basis.”

Business Direct is designed to help companies manage their B2B businesses in a highly efficient and scalable way. The solution allows companies to launch as many self-service online portals, which are accessible through custom logins, as their business customers and partners require, based off of one, central product catalog. Further, companies can use Business Direct to easily design and deploy customized purchase plans for each partner. The plans can be tailored with unique product prices and selections, custom IDs and passwords, and pre-set purchase limits based on quantity or time-period thresholds. Through Business Direct, companies also can offer their partners a wide range of payment options, including Bill Me Later® Business, as well as extend lines-of-credit. As an integrated part of Digital River’s comprehensive global e-commerce platform, Business Direct offers companies end-to-end e-commerce services and tools, including transaction processing, digital and physical product fulfillment, and subscription renewal capabilities, among others.

The Business Direct solution complements Digital River’s recently announced Channel Partner Network program, also designed for the B2B market segment. Both solutions can help businesses mitigate channel conflict and enhance efficiencies with powerful program management tools. Channel Partner Network offers online businesses a comprehensive toolset to automate and simplify the complicated tasks related to managing their reseller and distributor relationships, including tracking and reporting sales and commissions, and running specialized marketing programs.

About Digital River, Inc.

Digital River, Inc., a leading provider of global e-commerce solutions, builds and manages online businesses for software and game publishers, consumer electronics manufacturers, distributors, online retailers and affiliates. Its multi-channel e-commerce solution, which supports both direct and indirect sales, is designed to help companies of all sizes maximize online revenues as well as reduce the costs and risks of running an e-commerce operation. The company’s comprehensive platform offers site development and hosting, order management, fraud management, export controls, tax management, physical and digital product fulfillment, multi-lingual customer service, advanced reporting and strategic marketing services.

Founded in 1994, Digital River is headquartered in Minneapolis with offices across the U.S., Asia, Europe and South America. For more details about Digital River, visit the corporate Web site at www.digitalriver.com or call +1 952-253-1234.

Digital River is a registered trademark of Digital River, Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks, registrations or copyrights of their respective owners.

The Branning Group has just launched a feature-packed, independent social networking platform. This package will allow investors and businesses to launch their own social network (like MySpace, Facebook, etc) targeted towards a local and/or niche market. The first site that launched off of the platform is bluecanvas.com; a social networking site geared towards the artist community.

Alex Branning, the founder and Chief Technology Officer of the Branning Group, was ecstatic when asked about the possibilities: “Our platform will allow investors to leverage their existing relationships to create a stand-alone Internet business with an organically expanding community that is actively involved in content creation and word-of-mouth marketing.” When asked about the security and capabilities of the platform Branning responded, “I learned from the best of the best. My co-workers were a who’s who of social networking development; I have taken those lessons and applied them to a solid, secure code base that can be transplanted into an existing web site or used to create a new online venture.” Branning argues that there is no better time to invest in an online business with the instabilities on Wall Street and the ever-dropping real estate market, saying “an online business provides a constant cash return, provided you have a solid marketing plan to get it started.”

The Branning Group Social Networking Platform comes with the following feature set out of the box: user management (with full statistics and reports); peer relationships through the network (users can become “friends” with each other); micro-blogging, complete content management system; image upload with folder system; activity feed; blog system for members; classifieds system; events broadcasting; internal messaging; powerful search engine that can retrieve content from all areas of the site; a message “wall” that allows users to leave notes on their friends’ profile pages; and many more (see http://www.branninggroup.com/Feature_Set_Branning_Group_Social_Networking_Platform.pdf for complete list).

Social networking is a new concept to many people but it has been around for over ten years. What is a social network? A social network is a way for people to make a public profile within a system that will allow them to connect with others. Within the social network a person is able to create content for their specific profile and share it with people that he or she is connected with. The most popular social networks are Facebook and MySpace; many media-centric sites have been adding social components to their sites.

For more information please contact Alex Branning at (661) 946 9008 or go to http://www.branninggroup.com .

Motivity™, a website optimization platform, has been recognized by Google as an official Google Website Optimizer™ Technology Partner (WOTEP). Of the thousands of content management (CMS) companies worldwide, there are only seven Google Website Optimizer Technology Partners. Motivity™ is currently the only partner that integrates with Website Optimizer to make ecommerce testing easy.

Motivity’s integration with Google Website Optimizer allows site owners to simultaneously test combinations of website content and layout to determine the best modifications to increase conversion and usability.
CEO, Kayden Kelly says, “Google Website Optimizer is an amazing tool that has the potential to help businesses opt-out of the recession and increase their revenues and market-share. Now integrated into the Motivity™ ecommerce and content management system, it allows marketing teams to easily setup and manage tests without the IT department since no website code needs to be touched.” Kayden Kelly is an evangelist for Google Website Optimizer and believes the tool takes website analysis to a new level that provides actionable data for clients. In a recent Motivity™ client test, Google Website Optimizer helped us to identify an improved page variation that increased the conversion rate 591%. (View the Google Website Optimizer case study)

Motivity™ is focused on improving the user experience of websites through ongoing website testing and analysis. With the integration of other Google tools like Google Analytics™, Webmaster Tools™, and AdWords™, Motivity™ helps you to improve your free and paid advertising so you can drive more, quality traffic to your website.

“Motivity™ is a website optimization platform that measurably drives business growth for ecommerce and B2B lead generation websites” states Ken Colborn, Vice President and Engineering Director of Motivity™, “and the content and ecommerce management capabilities can be customized to meet a client’s exact needs based on their unique business processes.”

To be considered an authorized partner for Google Website Optimizer applicants must demonstrate a history of success and a proficient knowledge of the tools, which Blast Advanced Media has exhibited through numerous articles on the subject published on their blog and web site, speaking and training at various industry related conferences and seminars, and through the documented results Blast has achieved for its clients.

About Motivity:

Motivity™ is the marketing and web site optimization platform for ecommerce and lead generation focused companies. Motivity™ makes it easy for your marketing team to improve campaign ROI and user experience with tools to analyze site activity, make and test changes, manage and verify search optimization and drive more quality traffic. The Google Website Optimizer module makes it easy to run A/B and Multivariate tests anywhere on your site(s). Motivity™ is the product of 10 years of experience and development at Blast Advanced Media, an online marketing and web development agency located in Northern California. Learn more about Motivity’s Ecommerce, CMS and Website Optimization features.

GreatSchools, the national education nonprofit that 35 million people turn to in order to find the right school and support their children’s education, today announced the launch of The Great Parents Pledge, a social media initiative that encourages parents to commit to greater involvement as they prepare for the Back to School season.
In the most challenging economic climate in recent history, with family, state and school budgets tighter than ever, GreatSchools is encouraging parents to exercise their influence by agreeing to three free, easy and vital ways they can dramatically increase their child’s academic success. The Great Parents Pledge calls on parents to:

1. Read or talk 20 minutes a day with your child

2. Partner with your child’s teacher

3. Volunteer at your child’s school

“As we enter Back to School season when everyone – from parents to policy makers – is thinking about education, we have a simple message: Parents have a huge influence on their child’s academic success and must be equipped to be effective champions of education at home and in their community,” said Bill Jackson, founder and CEO of GreatSchools. “The Great Parents Pledge helps parents make a commitment to greater involvement and participate in a broader conversation about the role of parents in education.”

GreatSchools aims to get one million parents to take The Great Parents Pledge and is also reaching out to thought leaders, artists, political leaders, child educators and other influential parents to encourage them to take the Pledge. Some early supporters include:

Po Bronson, author of NurtureShock;
Debbie Phelps, mother of Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps;
Charles Best, CEO of DonorsChoose.org;
Rob Corddry, comedian, actor and former correspondent for The Daily Show;
Andrew Shue, actor and co-founder of CafeMom;
Tiffany Shlain, Founder of The Webby Awards;
Barbara O’Brien, Lt. Governor of Colorado; and
Sandra Tsing Loh, writer/performer and author of Mother on Fire.
The Great Parents Pledge is designed to tap into social media channels, enabling parents to easily take it and share it with others. After taking the Pledge, parents can view which states and cities have the largest number of pledging parents. GreatSchools also developed The Pledge as a distributable widget so that parents can post and share it virtually anywhere on the Web. GreatSchools will feature The Great Parents Pledge on its website and on its Facebook, MySpace and CafeMom pages.

The GreatSchools.org website (www.greatschools.org/pledge), which serves as the destination for The Great Parents Pledge, also features rich content to help parents prepare for Back to School season – including how to avoid the summer ‘brain drain’ by keeping kids involved in learning, a shopping guide for cost effective school supplies, and a ‘Back to School Quiz’ to learn how to ensure kids have a smooth start to the school year.

Private and Public Sector Support

Numerous organizations in the education and parenting sectors are helping to promote The Great Parents Pledge, including America’s Promise and DonorsChoose.

Hallmark, an iconic brand, manufacturer and retailer of expression cards, is serving as the inaugural sponsor of The Great Parents Pledge. The Great Parents Pledge includes specific actions parents can take to ease their children’s back-to-school butterflies, such as slipping their child an encouraging card.

About GreatSchools

GreatSchools is an independent, nonprofit organization that improves education by inspiring parents to be involved.

Parents choose GreatSchools to connect with each other – to find the right schools, share stories and advice, and get their parenting questions answered. Over the past 10 years, GreatSchools has empowered and inspired millions of parents to support their children’s education. In the past year alone, more than 35 million people – approximately one in three K-12 households in the U.S. – visited GreatSchools (www.greatschools.org). With hundreds of thousands of ratings and parent reviews of schools nationwide, GreatSchools is the paramount parent-to-parent education community.

A Webby Award-winning site, GreatSchools is now expanding its reach and impact with its College Bound initiative, a new program that will provide structured online and offline training, mentoring and community resources to unlock the power of parents in guiding their children’s success in school and beyond. GreatSchools is supported by numerous foundations and corporations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robertson Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.

Documation, an awarding winning provider of document management and workflow solutions has ventured into the growing world of social networking by creating a profile on the popular micro-blogging site, Twitter.

“Communication is crucial to maintaining close relationships with customers and partners. With the ability to post up to the minute news, musings, accomplishments and other updates, it has never been easier to maintain this contact” Victoria Walmsley, Marketing Executive at Documation said: “Twitter is a fantastic engagement tool, and we look forward to forging relationships with other companies and individuals through our tweets.”

Documation sees Twitter as the ideal way of connecting with potential clients and partners to quickly inform them of any company activities. “It is a fantastically easy way to keep in touch with clients; it’s also brilliant to be embracing web 2.0 technologies like this. Documation is ready to join the conversation!”

If you have a Twitter account and would like to get the latest news, updates and offers from Documation, please go to www.twitter.com/Documation to start following.

About Documation
Documation is a software developer and system integrator of document management and workflow solutions. Utilising over 19 years experience in the document management business they develop tailored solutions to meet the needs of each individual business customer. Documation are based in Eastleigh, Hampshire.

What are you doing? It seems like everyone, especially in the media, is answering that question in 140 characters or less with a “tweet” and letting their “followers” know what they are up to each hour of the day. But is Twitter something that is in its infancy, something that is just a media darling or has it already experienced its fifteen minutes of fame?
These are some of the results of a new LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Poll® of 1,015 advertisers from agencies or corporations who are involved in the advertising decision making process surveyed online between June 22 and 30, 2009 and 2,025 U.S. adults surveyed online between June 24 and 26, 2009.

Opinion of Twitter

Just under half of advertisers (45%) say that Twitter is something is in its infancy and its use will grow exponentially over the next few years, while one in five (21%) believe Twitter will not move into the mainstream and is something mostly young people and the media will use. Just under one in five advertisers (17%) believe Twitter is already over and it’s time to find the next best thing while 17% of advertisers say they don’t know enough about Twitter to have an opinion on it.

Among consumers it is a different story altogether, as over two-thirds (69%) say they do not know enough about Twitter to have an opinion about it. Just over one in ten say it is just at its infancy (12%), 12% also say it is just something that young people and the media will use and 8% of consumers say it is already over and it’s time to find the next best thing.

As might be expected, there is also an age divide on opinions of Twitter. Younger advertisers are more likely to have an opinion on Twitter than their older counterparts (only 11% of 18-39 year olds do not know enough about Twitter to have an opinion compared to 20% of advertisers 40-49 years old and 21% of advertisers 50 and older). Among consumers, the same applies and only half (55%) of adults, 18-34 years old say they don’t know enough to have an opinion, compared to 80% of those 55 and older.

Effectiveness of Twitter

Among those who have an opinion regarding Twitter, feelings about the effectiveness of it for promoting products and ideas are lukewarm among both consumers and advertisers. Among advertisers, just 8% say Twitter is very effective for promoting products and ideas while half (50%) say it is somewhat effective. One-third (34%) of advertisers say it is not that effective and 8% believe it is not at all effective for promoting products and ideas. Among consumers, 8% also say it is very effective for promoting ideas and products and 42% believe it is just somewhat effective. Three in ten (31%) consumers say Twitter is not that effective and 19% feel it is not at all effective for promoting products and ideas.

The new XING Partner Ecosystem is paving the way for even more diverse ways for the over 7.5 million XING members to benefit from the platform in their daily working lives. At the same time, the launch marks the opening up of the leading European business network for new applications from third-party developers.

A total of 16 applications from XING and 13 new partners from seven countries will be launched step by step on the XING platform from this afternoon onwards. Utilizing the new application platform of the XING Partner Ecosystem, Europe’s leading business network will provide its members with a wealth of business-related apps developed by partner companies. In the coming days, new tools by Huddle.net, Doodle, Dopplr, Deutsche Welle, MindMeister, SlideShare, spreed, travelload, Tungle, sueddeutsche.de, Wallstreet:Online, WELT ONLINE and ZCOPE will be introduced to the platform via the new OpenSocial interface. From news and project management through to travel planning and data sharing – the new apps can be installed free-of-charge at www.xing.com/opensocial and will be available to all XING members, in addition to the existing features on the XING platform.

Stefan Gross-Selbeck, CEO of XING AG, said: “Working together with our partners, our overriding aim is to make XING even more valuable for our business community. With this goal in mind, the requests and requirements of our members will form the key focus of our efforts as we develop the XING Partner Ecosystem further and select new apps on an ongoing basis.”

New apps will ensure added value for diverse business needs
XING members have a vast range of different professional interests and requirements. Accordingly, applications will provide different degrees of added value for different users. This insight forms the central reason why the launch of the XING Partner Ecosystem incorporates a wide variety of new apps designed for members to make use of XING in even more diverse ways. The first apps to be introduced are targeted primarily at business professionals who collaborate remotely with colleagues and business partners, who travel extensively on business and wish to stay informed about news and current affairs. New apps will be added to the application platform on a continuous basis over the coming weeks. These will complement the apps already developed by XING itself, including the “XING News” and “Ask XING” apps launched in May and the “TwitterBuzz” app launched in June. Uniquely for business networks, the XING Partner Ecosystem will therefore provide a broad mix of international apps that are tailored precisely to specific industries and professions, or have a local focus. Together with new partners, XING will be expanding this spectrum of applications on an ongoing basis.

XING Partner Ecosystem: New opportunities for third-party developers too
Jason Goldberg, Chief Product Officer at XING AG, sees the opening up of the platform as an equally exciting opportunity for XING, its members and third-party developers alike:

“The new XING Partner Ecosystem and the enabling of access to external developers carry immense potential for building on the user value our members can gain from XING. We will be collaborating with both international and regional partners, as we are aware too that most business is local for many of our users. Besides our members, our partners are of course also set to benefit greatly from offering their app to a community of more than 7.5 million users.”

XING actively selects partner companies and requires them to both meet the Company’s strict standards with respect to data privacy and technical and content quality, and also to offer useful business-related services to the largest number of members possible. Mr. Goldberg continues: “We are very pleased about the large response we have already received from third-party developers wishing to work with us. The user feedback we are now receiving will be absolutely key to developing the most relevant apps for our members, together with the very best partners.” Companies interested in partnering with XING can learn more about the XING Partner Ecosystem at www.xing.com/net/opensocialpartner.

Here’s a summary of the first new partner apps:

Social scheduling:

Doodle
Doodle is a leading online tool when it comes to find the right time for a group of professionals to meet. It takes away the pain of email volleys and calendar notes and closes the gap between personal calendar systems. On XING, Doodle is enhanced with social features, e.g. you can see meeting polls in progress in common with your contacts.

Tungle
Tungle.me, a first in click-to-meet technology, is the simplest way for professionals to make meetings happen. Tungle.me enhances a user’s profile by allowing XING members to view their availability and quickly schedule a meeting by proposing multiple times. When the meeting is booked, everyone’s calendar is automatically updated. Tungle syncs with Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple iCal and Entourage for Mac.

Collaboration/project management/workspaces:

Huddle Workspaces
Huddle Workspaces offers XING members secure workspaces to privately share information and work together with their connections. Users can store and share files, collaborate on documents and create private discussions. With Huddle Workspaces, documents can be created and edited online, users may also post comments and request approvals. Tasks, whiteboards, phone and web conferencing are available upon synchronising with a free, full Huddle.net account.

MindMeister
MindMeister brings mind mapping to the web, using its facilities for real-time collaboration to allow truly global brainstorming sessions. Users can create, manage and share mind maps online and access them anytime, anywhere through the award-winning web interface. Mind maps are highly useful to brainstorm and share ideas, manage meetings, structure documents and plan projects the easy way.

ZCOPE
ZCOPE is an easy to use project management tool for networked teams of all industries working together from remote locations. It follows the agile method and is focussed on the essential in managing projects. Using ZCOPE, teams can share version-controlled documents, communicate via project blogs, and collaborate on tasks.

Collaboration/web meetings:

spreed
spreed is a web-based solution for organizing web meetings, online conferences and presentations in Europe and around the world. Using spreed, XING members can hold free-of-cost web meetings and telephone conferences, give presentations, distribute documents, or simply meet online with attendees.
That means: they reserve a meeting room, invite participants, and present themselves and their ideas to the audience, live on the Internet.

Sharing:

SlideShare
SlideShare allows XING members to upload PowerPoint presentations, Word or PDF documents, share them with other members, and to find expert presentations on a wide number of topics. XING members can use SlideShare to embed presentations or documents into their profile, and show off their expertise, product, or service to their network: yet another way to get even more business leads.

Travel:

Dopplr: Where Next?
Dopplr is an online service for smarter travel. It helps you share your travel plans privately with friends and colleagues. It spots co-incidences and helps you make more of your trips. For example, it can tell you that three people you know will be in Tokyo when you are there next week. Dopplr’s Social Atlas helps you discover good places to eat, stay and explore while traveling.

travelload
travelload helps frequent travelers organize their trips, manage itineraries, and more. Create a personalized route itinerary, and post it on your XING profile, or download essential trip info onto your smartphone or mobile device, and take it with you wherever you go.

News:

Deutsche Welle
Deutsche Welle is Germany’s international broadcaster that produces television, radio and online content in 30 languages. Its unique mix of news, background information and cultural highlights offers European insights to international issues to people around the world. The “DW News app” offers XING members the possibility to integrate current news from Deutsche Welle into their profile. Every member can adjust the settings to meet their needs. Besides selecting a language, it is also possible to illustrate subject headings in different ways.

wallstreet:online
For the numerous XING members in the Finance industry, the wallstreet:online app is the ideal accompaniment to a XING profile. wallstreet:online is the largest and most active financial community in Germany. Users can create virtual portfolios and watch lists, read news and view detailed analyses and opinions. By linking stock details to the latest community postings, the wallstreet:online app puts detailed market info just a mouseclick away.

WELT ONLINE
With one of the largest circulations in Germany and a broad range of press coverage, the online news portal WELT ONLINE keeps XING readers up-to-date and in-the-know on a daily basis – extensive background coverage and topical stories. Users can filter news accordingly to their own interests and view these news items directly on their start page. They can also find out what other people are reading, and share views on specific issues and current affairs with both the XING and WELT ONLINE communities.

Edutainment:

sueddeutsche.de – CareerCamp
XING users can check their career opportunities at the sueddeutsche.de CareerCamp by taking tests on a variety of subjects such as etiquette, general knowledge or personality. Users can also see their ranking among all participants, or just their contact network. The app also features news and links to interesting and most latest articles on sueddeutsche.de, the online portal of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest daily quality newspaper.

About XING:
XING is the leading European online business network. Over 7.5 million members use XING in 16 languages to do business, find jobs, and pursue a career. XING helps members get connected and stay in touch with their contacts with customized networking solutions and services. Members are active on XING because of the real value generated, with XING Jobs, over 26 thousand specialized groups, and over 90 thousand live networking events a year, organized by members for members.
XING AG went public in December 2006 as the first Web 2.0 company to do so. A continual increase in membership figures leads to increasing revenues and profits. XING AG is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, and has local offices in Barcelona, Istanbul and Milan.
XING. Powering Relationships.

Huddle.net has today unveiled its team collaboration and project management application for the XING business social network. Huddle Workspaces is one of the first applications to be available as a part of XING’s new Partner Ecosystem launch.

XING is the leading European business social network with more than 7.5 million users worldwide. It is available in 16 languages including English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian and French.

For the XING OpenSocial platform launch, Huddle.net developed Huddle Workspaces – which includes all the key functionality of its popular online collaboration tool. Huddle is currently available in English, German, French and Italian, with more languages to follow.

Huddle Workspaces offers XING members secure workspaces to privately share information and work together with their connections. Users receive 1Gb of free space where they can store and share files, collaborate on documents and create private discussions. With Huddle Workspaces, documents can be created and edited online, users may also post comments and request approvals. Tasks, whiteboards, phone and web conferencing are available upon synchronising with a free, full Huddle.net account.

Premium XING members automatically receive a premium version of Huddle, with more workspaces and no ads. In addition, existing Huddle users will benefit from a discount on their XING premium membership.

“It’s exciting to be a part of the XING Partner Ecosystem. With its more than 7.5 million users across Europe, XING is truly leading the way in business networking,” said Alastair Mitchell, co-founder and CEO, Huddle.net. “We’re positive that Huddle Workspaces will deliver on XING’s major aim of connecting remote professionals and make it easier for them to work together on projects or brainstorm with new ventures.”

“Using Huddle, XING members can get work done together and go beyond networking,” said Jason Goldberg, Chief Product Officer at XING. “Our network now goes a step further by offering collaboration. It makes our site even more useful for our members’ business lives – and Huddle offers the perfect technology for it.”

As a part of its expansion into Europe, and the XING deal, Huddle.net appointed its first European channel partner – Synistema, which will oversee enterprise sales in Italy, France and Portugal. Huddle.net has already established its presence in the US with the launch on LinkedIn and a reseller partnership with InterCall, the world’s largest conferencing provider.

“Huddle.net is an enviable position of being a global company,” Mitchell continued. “We are headquartered in London, but have customers across Europe, the US, the Middle East, Australia and South Africa. With the launch on XING and adding a new channel partnership, we are officially kicking off our European expansion. We expect Huddle to be available in all the European languages by the end of this year.”

Huddle.net has been recently named as the Best B2B/Enterprise Start-up at the TechCrunch Europas Awards and one of the 50 global technology start-ups to watch by BusinessWeek.

About Huddle.net

Established in November 2006, Huddle.net delivers a network of secure online workspaces where users can share files, collaborate on ideas, manage projects and organise virtual meetings. Its customers include P&G, Pearson, Nokia and UNICEF, hundreds of thousands of small businesses and a number of UK and US government departments.

In October 2008, Huddle.net launched on the LinkedIn application platform as the only non-US company, along the likes of Amazon and Google. In February 2009, the company partnered with InterCall, the world’s largest conferencing provider. Huddle’s API enables developers to integrate their applications and build new services on top of the Huddle platform.

Huddle.net is a part of Microsoft’s UK Startup Accelerator Program. The company is also dedicated to the success of technology start-up companies and leads several initiatives to support the entrepreneurial community. Find out more at www.drinktank.co.uk.

About XING

XING is the leading European online business network. Over 7.5 million members use XING in 16 languages to do business, find jobs, and pursue a career. XING helps members get connected and stay in touch with their contacts with customized networking solutions and services. Members are active on XING because of the real value generated, with XING Jobs, over 26 thousand specialized groups, and over 90 thousand live networking events a year, organized by members for members. XING AG went public in December 2006 as the first Web 2.0 company to do so. A continual increase in membership figures leads to increasing revenues and profits. XING AG is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, and has local offices in Barcelona, Istanbul, Milan, and Beijing.

Offerpal Media, the leading virtual currency monetization platform for social applications, online games, virtual worlds, social networks, mobile applications and other social gaming publishers, today announced at the Casual Connect conference in Seattle, WA, that it has surpassed 100 million unique user accounts in its database, representing more than 250 million total transactions. The milestone speaks to the tremendous growth of the social gaming industry and demonstrates the high consumer enthusiasm for taking part in virtual economies inside these social applications and gaming web sites.
“Since our launch in September 2007, we have experienced growth at a nearly unprecedented rate,” said Offerpal Media Founder and CEO, Anu Shukla. “We are particularly proud of this latest milestone because it shows that we have delivered on our long-term vision of monetizing the social Web.”

Offerpal Media was founded as the first offer-based payment solution for social applications on the Facebook platform. The company has since expanded to integrate with hundreds of applications across dozens of other top-tier social networks including MySpace, Bebo, hi5, Tagged and many more, as well as destination gaming, social networking and virtual world sites such as IMVU, Aeria Games, WeeWorld and others. The company has also aggregated several of the most popular direct payment options such as credit cards, PayPal, mobile payments and micro-transaction providers to deliver a full-service virtual currency payment platform.

The company has continued to expand in other ways as well. Through its OfferpalINSIGHT package, for instance, publishers and application developers can gain actionable insights into the dials and levers that drive the monetization of their virtual economies. Its partnership with mobile SDK provider Tapjoy, allows mobile developers to easily plug Offerpal’s payment platform into their iPhone applications. Most recently, the company added OfferpalSECURE to its suite of monetization services as a means to reduce the lost revenues resulting from fraudulent user activity.

In February of this year, Offerpal received $15 million in Series B venture capital funding from D. E. Shaw Ventures, InterWest Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners. Although profitable since shortly after its launch, the company has used the additional funding to more rapidly extend its product offerings and expand into new markets.

Doug Pepper, General Partner, InterWest Partners, said, “InterWest invested in Offerpal because we believe they have the vision to build a large, sustainable company with differentiated products to tap into the fast growing social and gaming markets.”

About Offerpal Media

Offerpal Media was the first payment platform to monetize social applications, online games, virtual worlds, social networks, mobile applications and other social gaming publishers by providing end-users with a comprehensive set of virtual currency payment options, including direct payments such as PayPal, credit card, micro-transactions and mobile payments, as well as advertising offers such as free trials, big-brand discounts, online surveys and more as an alternate payment method. The company’s turn key monetization platform uses a sophisticated optimization engine and proprietary algorithms to generate publisher revenues at a network-wide average of $80 per day for every 1,000 Daily Active Users. The platform also allows advertisers to tap into Offerpal Media’s network of more than 100 million highly engaged and targeted consumers to generate high-value new customers. For more information, visit www.offerpalmedia.com.

VOIS, Inc., http://www.vois.com (pronounced “Voice”) (OTCBB: VOIS) (OTCBB: VOISW) today introduced Micro.VOIS (http://Micro.VOIS.com) for Twitter. Micro.VOIS, built on top of Twitter, is the easiest way for Twitter users to tell others that they want work or have work to offer. Using Micro.VOIS is as easy as adding #wantwork or #havework in a Twitter update (also known as a “Tweet”). As members Tweet jobs and opportunities, Micro.VOIS monitors the relevant data and helps Twitter members find what they are looking for.
Try It —

Actually, using Micro.VOIS is easier than explaining it. Try it right now: Using Twitter, find someone who has work or wants work. Then Tweet your project or idea with the hashtag #havework (ex. to tell people you have work) or #wantwork (for work wanted). The Micro.VOIS robot automatically adds all of those Tweets to the Micro.VOIS feed.

About VOIS, Inc.

VOIS.com (pronounced “Voice”) is a social commerce website that combines the power of social networking with an online marketplace for professional freelance and on-demand services. At VOIS, individuals and businesses have the tools to either Post Work, Find Work or Network as well as staff projects. VOIS’s social sourcing model connects a global network of talent, allowing individuals and business around the world to find and manage work cost-effectively. Vois also owns www.sCommerce.com and www.Rev2.org. VOIS is publicly traded under the symbols VOIS, VOISW. — www.vois.com