A few weeks ago we covered Branchout, a Facebook based professional networking application designed to connect you with potential employers. The site has been doing well, and has reached 25 million users and along with that news, has closed a $25 million Series C financing round. This brings their total funding to $49 million, which should give them a lot of ammunition to try and compete with LinkedIn, who have been surging lately on positive recommendations from analysts around the world.
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews. 
The basic set up is free, easy to use, and, perhaps, most importantly, it provides a private, manageable, and secure online space for businesses to communicate. If your board room created a social networking site, this is what it would look like.
In the battle for professional social networks, Germany’s XING has been steadily gaining ground as a competitor to LinkedIn, and it’s financial results today prove that the company knows how to monetize their users. XING announced that for the first half of 2010, total revenues rose 20% over last year’s €21.54 million to €25.86 million this year. The majority of revenue comes from XING’s paying Premium Members but there has been growth in their recruiting services and their on-site advertising as well.
