Out in the open - platform development for openBC

openBC are in the process of re-designing their site.

And they've started a competition to put forward a new design for the profile page. You can find our all about it at the openDesign Project.

There are a few sample profiles on the site, no one's submitted an entry yet, but it's still very early days. I'm sure that this initiative will gather pace and produce some interesting results.

Looking at one of the in-house designs (#3) I noticed that you can see how how many people are online, and how many of your direct contacts are also online. With Skype integration, that's a great way to "get back in touch" and just ping them to see how they are and what's new.

Obviously, it's a mock-up profile but gives some hints about future functionality.

It's also an interesting contrast this with LinkedIn's development approach which is much more behind closed doors. New features are hinted at, launched and you kind of stumble across them.

Let's see how things develop...

Technorati Tags - Online Networking, Social Networking, openBC