Socialtext 4.0 Brings Better Collaboration to Enterprise

By Chelsi Nakano Mar 3, 2010

Socialtext (news, site), a purveyor of social solutions for the enterprise, is back with version 4.0 of their platform. This time around they’ve got microblogging channels, filtered activity streams and new tools for group productivity.

Straight to the Good Stuff

We like to just dive right it when it comes to solutions we’ve reviewed before, so here’s a breakdown of the brand spankin’:

Collaborative Groups: Think of this as a more personal virtual watering hole than the platform itself. Groups can be created by anyone on the fly, and for any purpose (think project groups, or discussions around a common interest). With both private or open settings, they come complete with a home page, an activity stream of group member updates, a dedicated microblogging channel, and one or more workspaces to boot.

Moreover, Collaborative Groups can be synced with existing groups in your company's LDAP or corporate directory.

Socialtext 4.0 Groups

Microblogging Channels: We assume you’re all well versed in the benefits of microblogging. Socialtext’s in-house take is called Socialtext Signals, which now gives you the option to view all Signals from whichever group you choose. Also, users can publish a Signal to one group or all of them.

Microblogging Search: Now browse and search through the mountains of Signals, and even target your search to messages from a specific group.

Activity Stream Filtering: This feature is just like viewing a Twitter or Facebook feed, except it’s only the activity of the people in your work group, of course. View the activity stream of any group to which you belong, of any individual, of all the people you follow, or of the entire company.

Presence Indication: This is basically just a fancy name for Online Now. In Socialtext 4.0, you can hover over a person's avatar to see if they’re around or not.

Here's a helpful overview vid:

"The focus of our enterprise social software has always been to accelerate business performance for our customers, by giving their people new ways to share knowledge and expertise," says Eugene Lee, Socialtext's CEO. "Socialtext 4.0 takes that an extra step forward. It allows people to circulate information, ideas and updates in a targeted way with teammates, so they can move quickly to take advantage of new opportunities."

C is for Competition

Socialtext may be taking that extra step forward, but so are a lot of other players. A company with a similar solution called FMYI for example, just celebrated their sixth year of business with a 275 percent growth in revenue and 400 percent growth in usage.

At the same time though, it's important to note how rapidly useful social media and social solutions are becoming in the enterprise. Hell, even the US Military loosened up and OKd the use of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Point is, it seems like we're still in that stage where the pie is growing, and fighting over slices isn't necessary—yet.

Check out Socialtext's take on the growing trend by trying out their 30-day free trial.