Socialtext News & Articles

While most of us have been preoccupied with game-changing releases from Google, a war has been waged in the name of the future enterprise. On one side, Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com, leads those who believe enterprise software should be more like Facebook. On the other, a crowd of naysayers who don’t like the idea of mixing business with pleasure.  

The tools have managed to touch both our personal and professional lives. The concept has turned journalism, social media, marketing—and the overall way in which we connect—inside-out and upside-down. Yes ladies and gentleman, we’re talking about microblogging.

Naturally, related news comes in heavy, crushing waves, so we’ve put together some must-read happenings that have occurred so far this year. Whether you’re in the mix for business or pleasure, these points are worth the read.
 

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.

How would you feel if you knew Facebook and Twitter usage at the workplace was costing your economy upwards of 2 billion dollars per year in lost productivity?

Earlier this week, Salesforce.com (news, site) announced the closing of private placement funding in the amount of US$ 575 million. It comes in the form of convertible senior notes due 2015.

Salesforce.com says these notes are unsecured, unsubordinated obligations, with interest being paid semi-annually at a rate of 0.75% per year.

According to the company, they expect to use some of the funds for general purposes which could include an acquisition or two, maybe a joint venture or something similar.

Tom Foremski, of ZDNet, sees social media as a prime acquisition market for Salesforce.com. He mentioned SocialText, Six Apart and BrightIdea as potential acquisition targets. All are already in the enterprise arena, so it may not take as much work to get them integrated and into the hands of Salesforce.com customers.

And social media does make sense. Many enterprise content management vendors are integrating social media capabilities into their solutions, many social computing vendors are talking more and more about the integration of business and social networking and social media capabilities.

With Salesforce.com offering a host of cloud based business services, integrating the much in demand social media capabilities seem almost a requirement to stay competitive. And they have already started with their own Salesforce Chatter service offering, but they could go much further.

But what will they actually do with the money? We'll be watching to see what they do next.

While enterprises continue to grab up various social software solutions for their internal environments, Socialtext (news, site), a provider of such solutions, is working to increase the business value of their offerings.

Designed to ensure partner success, their new Services Partner Program gathers participants that specialize in different strategic practices for deploying social software. According to Socialtext, the benefits of joining include:

• Technical support handled by Socialtext,
• Training on Socialtext product and methodology for organizational traction; access to dedicated secure hosted appliance for internal training purposes; full access to proprietary Socialtext training and rollout materials
• Opportunities to jointly develop thought leadership, references, and speaking engagements
• Offer added value by integrating Socialtext and other enterprise systems. Easy integration with legacy systems via ReST API and Open Social widgets

So far, Socialtext's service partner party includes Future Changes, Pragmatic Enterprise 2.0, SiftGroups, SpanStrategies, The Adoption Council and Winkwaves. The company hopes that bringing these folks together will result in more depth and value for customers who either use or want Socialtext to dress up their workflow. 

"For too long, people have missed opportunities because they didn't know which of their colleagues might have information that could help solve a customer's problem or adapt to a change in the market," said Eugene Lee, CEO of Socialtext. "These service partners will help you get up-and-running on our platform in no time, and assist with cultural assessment, project selection and prioritization."

For more information, or to start the certification process, shoot an e-mail over to partners[at]socialtext[dot]com, or check out the partner program website. 

Happy anniversary to the spreadsheet! That's right, thirty years ago today Dan Bricklin helped dream up and release VisiCalc, the world's original spreadsheet.

In the last three decades Bricklin has continued to exercise his love for cells and grids via the Product Lead position for SocialCalc. Socialtext's (news, site) spreadsheet solution is integrated in their suite and can link data from other spreadsheets and workspace pages. Like their name suggests, the tool also attempts to reflect the changing times by including various social features as well:

"SocialCalc is the next logical step for the spreadsheet," Bricklin said. "As we move into the social world, as typified by a wiki where there is one current copy that everyone can work from, the spreadsheet needs to move there, too."

To celebrate the concept's dirty thirty, the company has just stripped SocialCalc of its beta status. Existing Socialtext customers can get the tool for US$ 3 per month, while new customers can enjoy the tool free of charge for 2010. As usual, there is also a free trial version for all the skeptical. 

For My Innovation (FMYI) stepped into the ring to duke it out with fellow social solutions for the enterprise (think Socialtext) six versions ago, but this is the first time they've popped up on our radar.

In addition to some delightful, tree-hugging values, the FMYI package includes several features that are common in enterprise-level tools: a calendar, news feed, workspaces, the ability to post and share text, links, files, events and tasks, etc. Like its predecessors, version 6 of the app claims to go beyond work needs, but this time the company aims to make it fun. 

Socialtext (news, site) brings collaboration to your smartphone with Socialtext Mobile, allowing secure microblogging and staff communication on the go.

Social media moves so fast, it's hard to keep up. Here are the week's top stories in scan-friendly format:

• Facebook Has 65 Million Mobile Users
• WordPress Embraces the Real Time Web With RSSCloud   
• Crossing Signals: What To Do When Your Boss Wants To Friend You On Facebook
• SocialText Launches Clients

When Reid Hoffman, Founder of LinkedIn talked to the Fox Business Network at the recent Fortune Tech Conference in Pasadena, he stated, “we live in networks, and what online networks do is make you use the networks you already have more effectively.” He compared business social networks to Google. “There was all this information in the world before Google. Google just made it a lot easier to find it all,” Hoffman stated.

Friday is usually conducive to a more relaxed state of mind, so we hope as you’re reading this you’re at ease, enjoying casual wear or some other end-of-the-week perk. Why? Because we’re going to talk about Twitter.

TWITTER! The name alone is enough to make many of you twitch, start sucking your thumbs, or fall to the floor in the fetal position and pray that we were just kidding when we said TWITTER! WE’RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT TWITTER! And that’s precisely why we have to have this discussion. For many, Twitter is like an uncontrollable giant, taking over things we never gave it permission to take over. Like our minds. Or journalism.

The twists, turns and tips you need for staying up-to-date by the water cooler.

Highlights of the Week

• SharePoint 2010, A Business Collaboration Platform. Coming down the pike is the latest version of Microsoft's SharePoint. Here's an early peek.
•  Nuxeo Galaxy: Extending Enterprise CMS to CEVAs. Nuxeo, being quite a busy bee lately, launched their Galaxy Program. No, astronautical adventures are not included.
• Plone Web CMS Update - What's Coming in v4. Following the PLIP process, the Plone 4 Framework Team has polished off their list of what's to be included in this release.
• A Quickie with Microsoft Office 2010. The ol' suite is most certainly a seasoned player, which, so far, has proved its ability to keep up with the changing times.
• Hannon Hill Updates Web CMS to v6.2, Improvements Aplenty. After only a month of testing Cascade Server 6.2 Beta, which was released on June 9th, the official release of v6.2 incorporates all the major changes in the beta version plus a few fixes.
• Mark Logic Launches New Application Services, Updates Core Software. World, meet both MarkLogic Server 4.1 and MarkLogic Application Services 1.0.
• New Software Glues Alfresco Enterprise CMS to Scalable Storage. It was inevitable that tighter integration between the two was on the way, and yesterday they formally announced the launch of the Alfresco2CAStor connector between the two platforms.
• Socialtext Offers Cheap Microblogging  for Your Intranet. Take a look at the new Socialtext Microblogging Appliance. It’s like Twitter for your Intranet, and it’s only a dollar per user, per month.

Most Popular Articles

And these are the articles you couldn't get enough of during the past week -- if page views are anything to go by, anyways. So, what was your fancy? SharePoint 2010, Social Media and Drupal SEO.

• SharePoint 2010, A Business Collaboration Platform. Now Microsoft gives us a bird's eye view into what SharePoint 2010 is really going to look and behave like. Time to take a little tour.
• More Moms Ditch Magazines, Turn to Social Media. Once, all that was needed to identify a mom was her jeans. Now, it's her twitter handle.
• Drupal SEO - 5 Must Do Configurations. Some people say that system X is better than system Y for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. This may be true to some degree. But I've never seen a serious Web CMS project that expected to use the software without any configuration or modifications.
• Open Atrium: A Drupal Based Intranet Ecosystem. Open Atrium, now officially in its public Beta phase, is an open source starter intranet package that includes popular tools like blogs, wikis, a calendar, to-do lists, a ticketing system and microblogging.
• SharePoint 2010: Developer and IT Professional Outtakes. In this sneak peek, let's look at what's new for developers and IT professionals.
• Microsoft Silverlight and Expression Hit the Big 3 Mark. What's new under the hood of Silverlight 3 and Expression 3.
• WordPress 2.9 Takes Aim at Multi Media. Things are moving pretty quickly in the Web CMS world, as usual. Accordingly, hot on the heels of WordPress 2.8 comes an announcement about 2.9.

The Economy is in the Dumps but Content Management is Booming

If you're looking to advance your career, or if your org has got empty seats in need of savvy CMSers, you're in luck. Catch the best fish of the season on our on our content management job board.

Featured Jobs:

• CTO with Drupal experience needed in San Francisco at Drupal Staffing
• Jr. Drupal CMS Engineer at North American Travel Journalist Assoc
• Drupal Developers needed in San Francisco (relocation ok) at Drupal Staffing
• Software Engineer - Knowledge Management at Amazon
• Visual Designer at Lime Wire

Whether Traveling or Virtual, There are Events to Attend

Wondering how to spend your time in the next few weeks or months? Attend a conference or maybe just a webinar or two. Have a look at our new Events Calendar to see what's happening in your area.

Featured Events:

• Usability Week Sydney 2009 July 27 - Aug 1, conference
• Drupalcon Paris 2009 September 1, Conference
• IDEA Conference 2009, Toronto, Canada September 15-16, Conference
• Adobe MAX 2009, Los Angeles, CA October 4-7, Conference

Ross Mayfield, Chairman, President & Co-Founder of Socialtext (news, site) has a question: “What would your company be like with fewer status update emails? If your company had the ability to ask questions openly and get answers without forcing interruptions and could bridge knowledge silos?”

If you’re itching to find out, take a look at the new Socialtext Microblogging Appliance. It’s like Twitter for your Intranet, and it’s only a dollar per user, per month.

Not to be outdone by the other Enterprise 2.0 vendor announcements during the Enterprise 2.0 Conference this week, IBM (news, site) not only unveils the SaaS version of their social computing solution, LotusLive Connections, but they also take home an award for it.