Why openBC

Many people have been asking me why I prefer openBC as an online business networking portal: although I have answered and given my two cents in personal e-mails, I just had to think some more and enumerate adn articulate my thoughts and those features of openBC that make it truly valuable.

SEARCH

Not only does it provide drop-down categories, it also allows keyword searches. Makes it easy to narrow-down my search – so even though there is a limit for viewing only 200 members per search result, you’ll never have a problem.

“Haves” and “Wants”
This allows the user to match profiles with other users who might require what they have to offer and vice versa. There isn’t any other online business networking portal with such a powerful and accurate search criteria.

Maiden Name
People who marry and take on the last name of their spouse can still be searched under their maiden name. One reason I personally did not change my name after marriage was because I wanted to keep the recall value that my name had in my business circle!

No bias based on people with the maximum number of contacts
The person on the network, who has the maximum connections, also gets the maximum requests to connect. Connections attract connections – while that might be a good thing for name collectors, openBC discourages that practice because it goes against the basics of business networking, which is to build relationships. So there is no search criteria or listing where you search your network giving the option of “number of connections”. Quality more than quantity and hence the quantity you build will be the best quality.
It might not tell other members how you’re faring, but it does tell you what your “rank” is in terms of connections – but only within your own country!

Search categories:

1. First name [and similar] [keyword]
2. Family name [and similar] [keyword]
3. Universities [keyword]
4. Other interests [keyword]
5. Organizations [keyword]
6. Status [(all), Entrepreneur, Employee, Freelancer]
7. Company (now) [keyword]
8. Company (previous) [keyword]
9. Industry [keyword]
10. Title (now) [keyword]
11. Title (previous) [keyword]
12. Person has [keyword]
13. Person wants [keyword]
14. City, business [keyword]
15. Country, business [(all) – drop-down]
16. Zip code, business [keyword]
17. State, business [keyword]
18. Member since [(all), less than 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days]

And you can search in:

• Your languages only
• Your contacts only
• Your contacts up to 2nd degree
• All of openBC

Search Agents
You can create up to 20 different search agents and carry out periodical searches using the same and even have the results delivered to your personal inbox via e-mail!

Pre-defined searches – Power Search

1. Members who visited your contact page recently
2. Members whose contact page you visited recently
3. Members who clicked your company homepage recently
4. Members who clicked one of your former companies’ homepage recently
5. Members who recently viewed your “about me” page
6. Random contacts of my contacts
7. All contacts of my contacts
8. Next birthdays of my contacts
9. Random contacts in my vicinity [geographically]
10. Co-workers: same former company as you
11. Members of the same organizations as you are
12. Members who attended the same universities that you did
13. Members whose “wants” match your “haves”
14. Members who “haves” match your “wants”
15. The newest members
16. Members logged in recently
17. Random members with an “about me” page

LANGUAGES

Options to network in the language you want. Currently caters to:

• English
• Dutch
• Spanish
• French
• Italian
• Portuguese
• Nederland
• Svenska
• Suomi
• Japanese
• Chinese
• Russian
• Korean
• Polish
• Turkish

BIRTHDAY REMINDERS

No need to depend on other software platforms to get birthday reminders – you can see them on your homepage whenever you login. Also the weekly statistics e-mail that openBC send out to all its members (if they choose to receive it) give a list of people whose birthday it is in the week.

WEEKLY STATISTICS NEWSLETTER

• List of birthdays in the week – from your contacts only
• Short list of newest members who joined openBC
• Statistics about the number of hits your contacts page on openBC received in the particular week. Average number of hits on an openBC contacts page in that week.
• News of latest features on openBC
• Short list of members who visited your contact page on openBC
• List of your events in that particular week

PRIVACY

Various options under this allow you to control:

• Who can send private message to you via openBC: [only direct contacts, your contacts’ contacts, your 3rd degree contacts, contacts associated by up to 4th degree, all of openBC]
• Who may view your list of contacts: [nobody, only your direct contacts, your contacts’ contacts, your 3rd degree contacts, contacts associated by up to 4th degree, all of openBC]

Other options include:

• Whether you would like to have a guest book on your contact page
• Whether you want others to see your activity meter
• Whether you would like to be listed as a suggested contact in the weekly statistics newsletter
• Whether you would like Search Engines to index your page
• Whether you want other members to see what Forums you are a member of
• Whether you want your forum articles to be available to Search Engines and RSS

TELEPHONY

Use openBC to make calls!
They send you detailed bills and there’s an option to specify whether you would like to see the last three digits of the numbers you’ve called – to check whether the calls have been billed correctly.

INFO BOXES

You have the option of altering what your start page looks like and what information you would like displayed there – any three options from the following:

• Show 5 new members on your start page [you can also specify whether you want to see new members from your country or all over the world]
• Show 5 random contacts of your contacts
• Show upcoming birthdays of your contacts
• Show a quick search form
• Show the latest 5 public forum articles
• Show your last 5 forum articles
• Show next 5 events
• Show next 5 events in your city

MESSAGING

The best part about openBC is that even though you might not have opened your e-mail id to your direct contacts – they can still get in touch with you! So you do not necessarily have to show your e-mail id to everyone to correspond you’re your contacts!

You can have a record of the e-mails you have sent and the e-mail you have received on openBC – there’s the inbox and the outbox. You can even search for names of your contacts within the inbox and outbox.
There’s a drop-down box with a list of names of your direct contacts – for sending a direct e-mail to them – you don’t need to go searching your address book! Of course you can download vCards of each of your contacts.

And these are only the functions that I use regularly!
If you too are convinced about openBC then take the advantage of free premium membership for your first month by joining my network of more than 1100 professionals!