Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 26th March 2009
18 COMMENTS 
David Petherick, Contributing Editor, United Kingdom
Today, Jason Golderg was named in the new post of Chief Product Officer at Xing, a business social network with over seven million members, and over half a million members paying for premium accounts. This follows on the acquisition of Jason’s social median ’social news aggregator’ By Xing, as reported by The Next Web in December 2008.
The Next Web’s David Petherick spoke to Jason Goldberg in an exclusive interview in Hamburg on the eve of today’s announcement.
Jason Goldberg, Chief Product Officer, Xing, talks exclusively to The Next Web
(more…)
Written on 13th March 2009
0 COMMENTS
David Petherick, Contributing Editor, United Kingdom
A NEXT WEB EXCLUSIVE: Amsterdam, Feb-13-2009 17:15: – Socialmedian, the ‘friend-filtered news service’ which was purchased by business social network Xing AG in December last year (another Next Web exclusive), has revealed that it will be using Facebook Connect as the “preferred way to login and participate on socialmedian”
The Next Web managed to speak directly with Jason Goldberg, CEO of socialmedian and VP of Applications at Xing.
Q: Why Facebook Connect?
A:“The simple why is that Facebook is the Internet’s coffee shop. The conversation takes place on Facebook. We went with Facebook Connect as a simple way to give users easy sign-on to socialmedian plus all the benefits of instant sharing with their Facebook network.”
“With Facebook Connect, people can join socialmedian using their existing Facebook account and then automatically share news with their Facebook contacts.”
Goldberg also indicated that the socialmedian team is also currently in live testing of variations of the socialmedian service running on Xing, but when pressed, declined to comment beyond that. “We have a number of applications in live user testing on Xing right now. More news on that coming soon.”
You know where to come for the next web news – and if you cant wait until Monday, see the ‘socialmedian Today‘ tab at social|median.
Written on 19th December 2008
13 COMMENTS
David Petherick, Contributing Editor, United Kingdom
I managed to grab socialmedian CEO Jason Goldberg for a rapid-fire interview this afternoon, following the announcement this morning of the acquisition of SocialMedian Inc. by Xing, as reported earlier today on The Next Web.
Jason Goldberg of socialmedian
DP: Hi Jason – congratulations on the news.
JG: Thanks!
DP: Do you anticipate Social Median being integrated into the Xing.com network, or are there other opportunities will you be pursuing following your acquisition by Xing?
JG: We will continue to operate and grow socialmedian as a standalone service as well as integrate features from socialmedian into Xing. We’ll also be working on other applications that bring relevant content and increased user engagement to the Xing platform.
DP: The Xing Appplications Platform?
JG: We will be launching and developing a platform which enables third parties to connect with Xing’s network of users both on Xing as well as integrating aspects of Xing onto their own sites.
I’ll be leading this effort to make Xing the go-to place for companies and developers to connect with Xing.
DP: Cool. Sounds very exciting. I remember tipping social median for success in May 2008 when it was still in alpha release. Socialmedian has been built and developed rapidly – what have been the key driving factors for you?
JG: The key to developing socialmedian has been a rapid development process in which we built every step of the way with our users. We constantly gather user feedback which drives very short development milestones. We test stuff by shipping it vs. pretending we know all the answers. Ultimately the user is always right so it’s most important to grow and develop with your users. As an example, our first development milestone was 3 weeks long. We then shipped that code to a small group of people and got their immediate feedback, then repeated that process weekly.
DP: And it worked well! What have you got right, and what have you got wrong along the way?
JG: I’d say we get 30% right at first and then learn the other 70% as we go. The key is getting the 30% done in a way which it enables you to learn the rest from your users and to be able to rapidly adjust as you learn from them.
We got our learning model for product development really right – we put less focus on user interface than we maybe should have, but users seem to forgive you on design when they like (or at least respect) the core functionality.
DP: I understand you’re going to be based in Germany – what changes do you think that will bring for you?
JG: I’ve promised myself that I will learn two languages in 2008: German and Ruby on Rails.
Our software is developed in Ruby, and Xing is making a major investment in Ruby. I am serious about getting more into the code. At heart I’m a product guy.
DP: How you see elements such as Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect driving developments in the next few years offering ‘friend-filtered’ information, and where do you think socialmedian fits into that picture?
JG: I do think that we are just in the very early days of the distributed web and that the portable social graph will be a big driving force of further developments in 2009.
DP: Finally, what’s your key single-sentence piece of advice for a web startup?
JG: Earn one success at a time. Meaning, while you may have a big grand vision, getting on base at first is more important and practical than hitting a homerun (in U.S. baseball terms). Just focus on achieving 1 milestone at a time and don’t get ahead of yourself. And spend as little as it takes getting there.
DP: Jason, thank you so much for your time. I hope we might see you at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam in April 2009.
JG: For sure!
Written on 19th December 2008
7 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
In what I can only describe as surprising news, news aggregation service socialmedian is being acquired by linkedin competitor XING.
According to a post published this morning by SocialMedian founder Jason Goldberg, the entire socialmedian team will be joining XING. I assume this includes both their US and India based development team. Goldberg will be relocating to Hamburg as part of the agreement and will lead a “major new initiative” on behalf of his new company. Goldberg will also be given the newly created position of “VP XING Applications Platform” – responsible managing global partnerships on behalf of the XING network.
According to a blog post by current XING CEO Lars Hinrichs, SocialMedian makes a the ideal acquisition for the business social network because:
“In business success depends on access to the right information at the right time. Both the speed of information and the sheer volume of data have increased rapidly due to the rise of the internet. Traditional media companies, social media such as blogs, tweets, videos and other user-generated websites now provide daily news, leading to a veritable flood of information. The consequence: Time-strapped professionals are forced to parse through numerous news sources for relevant information and sort, organize, and share stories on their own.”
As yet, no word on the financials have been disclosed. TechCrunch reports $7.5 Million.
With currently over 6.5 million members, this marks another interesting landmark in publicly listed XING’s growth. We reported only a few weeks ago on the news of a change in CEO at XING and now with the news of this acquisition it marks another change in direction.
**Update**
We have an interview with Jason Goldberg regarding the acquisition.
More Info at:
Social Median Blog, XING blog, Official Press Release, TC, RWW
Written on 24th November 2008
1 COMMENT
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Some big news from Germany earlier today, Lars Hinrichs (pictured right), founder and current CEO of the European equivalent of Linkedin, XING, is stepping down. He will be replaced early next year by the current head of EBay Germany Dr. Stefan Groß-Selbeck (pictured below).
During a brief transition phase, Groß-Selbeck will be cooperating closely with Hinrichs and will gradually take on the responsibilities involved. Hinrichs will apparently continue to support the company in an advisory capacity whilst Groß-Selbeck focuses further on expansion, a broader range of services and the internationalization of the company.
Groß-Selbeck is an academic of the highest order with a good deal of experience. He holds an MBA from INSEAD, worked for the Boston Consulting Group leaving to join ProSiebenSat1 Media AG. (more…)
Written on 15th August 2008
19 COMMENTS
Şekip Can Gökalp, Next Web Turkey WebTipr
Some markets of the new economy come first when we look at expansion possibilities of web giants. Europe, of course, because of the high penetration rate and China, with the highest rate of usage growth and more than 1 billion potential customers. It’s clearly a good idea to take a chance in those markets. But what about possible others?
Let’s take a look at Turkey. With an estimated Internet penetration of 37%, Turkey has a total Internet user amount of 26 million people. You can find more to it in this study of Sina Afra from Ebay. I wish to give an introduction to this newly blooming market, which, I think, should be on the list of every company who has the goal to be successful on a global scale.
Where is the buzz?
It is a clear fact that the Turkish society is into socializing. According to Wave 3, social networks are by far the most used Web 2.0 tool in Turkey. 67% of the Internet users have a profile on social networks, which also makes it clear why Facebook has 3.6 million users from Turkey. Myspace, Hi5, Perfspot and the local Yonja are also some of the bigger social networks that are very popular in Turkey. Next to social networks, blogging and news are the other most important areas in the Turkish Internet market. News are of course ruled by local players, which are mostly web sites of existing news providers like NTV, Hürriyet, Milliyet and Habertürk, but Google seems to be aware of the gap and launches the Turkish Google News.
E-commerce is also an important area, where the Turkish market is far from satiety. Because of some cultural characteristics, Turkish people still don’t think it is safe or clever to shop online. Surely this doesn’t mean that there is no one there. Ebay for instance made a move and bought 20% of gittigidiyor, which is the leader of the auction market.
Turkish startup scene; a newborn baby
When we look at the innovative Web 2.0 applications and services that have been built so far, we see a small amount of startups behind them. These are mostly people with international relations who have seen the future, and want to create it in their own country. 2008, however, has been a very productive year for Turkey, with many milestones. In my opinion, the startup scene was born just this year. What we’ve seen in the Valley, in Berlin, or in London, is now also happening in Istanbul. Small teams do roadshows, weekly or monthly events take place and the first VC funds were founded (Leventure, LabX, Ilab, Golden Horn Ventures etc.). Also, the first investments were raised in a way it happens in the world. For me, events, fresh startups and foreign players are important benchmarks to evaluate a country’s potential. That’s why I’ll sum these up. (more…)
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
