Did Germany Just Release a Better LinkedIn?

What’s the Latest Development?

A previously German-only social media site has officially opened to the English-speaking world, showing off its members’ knowledge by hosting written articles in a variety of professional fields. The goal of the site, named ExploreB2B, is to generate discussion around those articles with the aid of project boards and virtual industry conferences. According to its founders, the new site improves on LinkedIn by establishing some members as experts on certain topics, reducing the number of duplicate message boards and allowing other users to subscribe to experts’ discussions. 

What’s the Big Idea?

One of ExploreB2B’s more interesting features is its crowdsourcing platform for individual business projects. “The site’s project boards can be used to look for specific suppliers, or for help in solving other business problems. Requests for help can also be shared, so people can pass on new business to contacts they know might be interested.” The site will also introduce premium features, which are free for now. Among them are an analytics tool which allows the user get a better idea of “who’s reading their articles, how they got there and what their interests and industries are.”

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