ZDNet Must Read:
Google's Chrome OS: Will you give up desktop apps?
Google revealed a bevy of noteworthy developments for its Chrome OS. However, the success or failure of the Chrome OS will ride on whether users will give up desktop applications.... Continued »
Category: Social networking
October 21st, 2009
Google CEO Schmidt: Microsoft's Bing-Twitter pact 'a smart deal for them'
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Wednesday that Microsoft’s Bing-Twitter deal “is a good deal for them.” But he also hinted that Google isn’t going away quietly. “Watch this space,” he said referring to real-time search.
Speaking at the Gartner IT Symposium 2009, Schmidt Google can rank real-time information today. He added:
Real-time information is just as valuable as all other information and that’s valuable for Google.
The problem?
Google can rank real-time information, but the technical problem is figuring out what parameters contribute to that ranking. For instance, what factors should be used to determine in real-time who is more important and should garner a higher rank? Simply put, Schmidt thinks there’s a search noise problem with real-time search.
Update: Separately, Google said it would begin indexing Twitter feeds too (Google blog, Twitter blog).
Also see: Microsoft lands Facebook, Twitter deals for Bing
Tweets on Bing: Watch out for more noise, more clutter in search results
October 20th, 2009
The business-to-business of Gist
Gist, an online service that integrates your social stream with tools like Microsoft Outlook and Salesforce.com, recently launched its public beta to bring in individual users, but is wasting no time spreading its B2B wings. Gist will ride shotgun with Microsoft’s launch of its new CRM software and tag along with Exchange. And the company is talking with potential partners like SAP and IBM’s Lotus unit in upcoming weeks.
Those tidbits emerged from a conversation I had with Gist CEO T.A. McCann and Robert Pease, vice president of marketing. Gist had a presence at the Gartner IT Symposium as it went about educating CIOs and tech executives about its service.
Gist already has a strong following among sales types because its algorithms can surface important contacts and flag folks they should be in touch with. It’s pretty clear that McCann and Pease get the business market and how it could be a handholding service to enterprises that still aren’t sure what to make of social networking. Gist’s pitch to the CIO types could be: You don’t have to Twitter, but you need to follow it. That’s where Gist comes in.
The Gist service analyzes your activity stream—think Outlook, Twitter and Facebook—and uses its importance algorithm to highlight and organize contacts. There’s an obvious business case if Gist can save people time and help close sales. “Business professionals will trade money for time and insight,” says McCann. Read the rest of this entry »
October 8th, 2009
Information workers loaded with tech they don't use, need
Forrester Research has published a set of workplace benchmarks that reveal what workers generally need—and don’t. The big takeaway: Workers have too much technology and software licenses when they’d really be happy with just a browser, email and a few handy social networking tools.
In a report—the inaugural Workforce Technographics survey—that is designed to reveal the state of the workforce, Forrester details PC usage, mobile tools and what software and Web 2.0 technologies are actually being used.
The theory here is that IT managers should follow the workers lead when it comes to plotting a budget. For instance, does every worker need full-blown Office? Does everyone need a laptop? Are you licensing more software than is actually used?
Among the takeaways from Forrester’s survey of 2,001 U.S. information workers:
October 6th, 2009
Helpstream aims to be bridge for social CRM, marketing and returns
Helpstream on Tuesday launched a new module that aims to bridge customer service, social media and tangible marketing results.
Helpstream, which is a social CRM software-as-a-service provider, acts as an add-on to what Oracle and Salesforce.com offer. What’s notable about Helpstream’s latest module is that it is trying to quantify the links between customer service, marketing and social media. The main effort: Integrate business processes with social customer service.
September 29th, 2009
Google Wave hits developers; Bug hunt begins
Google said it will send out 100,000 invitations to developers to give Google Wave, the company’s collaboration tools, a spin.
Google Wave, which made its debut a few months ago at the search giant’s developer powwow, generated a lot of initial buzz. However, scalability and stability is an open question.
Since first unveiling the project back in May, we’ve focused almost exclusively on scalability, stability, speed and usability. Yet, you will still experience the occasional downtime, a crash every now and then, part of the system being a bit sluggish and some of the user interface being, well, quirky.
Also see: The enterprise implications of Google Wave
Gallery: Google Wave rolls into actionThe general idea is to get Google Wave (all ZDNet content) to developers to help the company cook up features. Google acknowledges that Google Wave isn’t fully baked and lacks:
- The ability to remove a participant from a group;
- Define groups;
- Assign permissions;
- And use draft mode.
Indeed, CNet News’ Tom Krazit said:
At present, however, Google Wave is one big bug bash, perhaps half a year away from launching as a stable product. Google engineers have solved many of the more persistent bugs that were hampering the product a few months ago, but there is still a long way to go and Wave should not be considered anything but a “preview,” Rasmussen said. Still, that’s better than “developer preview,” the status previously attached to Wave that implied only hardcore techies should venture within.
September 22nd, 2009
IBM beefs up Lotus Connections with enterprise microblogging
IBM rolled out more enterprise collaboration features for its Lotus Connections software such as microblogging tools and customized widgets.
Big Blue jumped on the enterprise social networking bandwagon early. The company’s Lotus Connection 2.5 debut comes amid a collaboration summit in Cambridge, Mass.
Lotus Connections 2.5 includes:
- Customized interfaces.
- Custom widgets to be moved around.
- User added blogs, wikis and file sharing.
- Community discussion threads with user photos.
- Support for the iPhone and Nokia S60 devices.
- Ways to categorize topics and most active participants.
- And a microblogging feature for status updates.
If these features sound familiar that’s because they are found on Facebook, Twitter and a bevy of other consumer-ish sites.
Here are a few screenshots.
September 22nd, 2009
Nielsen, Facebook forge alliance: Social networking as consumer attitude tracker
Nielsen and Facebook said Tuesday that they have forged a strategic alliance to use the social networking site as a research tool to gauge consumer attitudes and buying intentions.
Under the multi-year alliance the two will collaborate on products for marketers designed to get a read on consumer attitudes (statement). The first effort is something called Nielsen BrandLift, a tool to gauge advertising effectiveness on Facebook. The Nielsen effort comes after Facebook shelved its Beacon tracking effort.
The plan is to roll out BrandLift to a few marketers and then to all Facebook advertisers in coming months. BrandLift users opt-in polls on the Facebook homepage to read consumer attitudes.
What are the benefits?
- Nielsen gets a fun data set to analyze.
- Facebook can use Nielsen’s data crunching expertise to improve ad effectiveness.
- And you get to part of that social media/consumer attitude data set.
Let’s face it you’re not getting much out of the deal. But Nielsen must be salivating over analyzing Facebook’s 300 million users. In fact, this deal may illustrate the future business for Facebook. Advertising will certainly play a part in Facebook’s future, but the data and insights may become much more important. Ditto for Twitter.
September 16th, 2009
Congress combines cloud computing, social networking with '3121'
A new Web 2.0 venture by the National Journal Group aims to bring the 21st century to congressional staffers in Washington, D.C.
The site, 3121, was created after staffers who couldn’t answer the “who-does-whats” demanded a digital directory of people on Capitol Hill.
(The current system is a series of printed books called “Leadership Directories” that can barely keep up with staff turnover.)
The site is not unlike the original Facebook in that it’s a social network — albeit with strong, LinkedIn-like professional overtures — that’s used as a directory of people in a selected group.
In 3121’s case, D.C.-based congressional staffers replace Facebook’s original elite-colleges-only crowd.
It’s an example of the Hill outsourcing a necessary function to an outside media company to make productivity happen.
See pictures and read all about it on SmartPlanet.
September 15th, 2009
Feds launch Apps.gov; Cloud computing players salivate
Updated: The Federal government launched Apps.gov, a site designed to be a storefront for approved cloud computing applications. The move is designed to streamline application adoption at federal agencies.
U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra said in a briefing Tuesday that Apps.gov is designed to lower costs and push innovation into government agencies. The cloud-based software on Apps.gov are housed centrally and available via various devices. Kundra billed the effort as “a one-stop source for cloud services.” The site features business applications, cloud services, productivity apps and social media software.
September 9th, 2009
Salesforce rolling out a beefier Service Cloud
Salesforce on Wednesday will announce an upgrade to the Service Cloud offering it unveiled back in January, incorporating enhancements to its social networking tools and announcing plans for the rollout of a Knowledge-as-a-Service offering and crowd-sourcing Answers product.
The company boasts that it has been growing at a time when many other companies are downsizing and they attribute it to the demand for cloud services that allow business customers to do more with less.
The two main offerings on the social media front - integration with Twitter and Facebook - are piggybacking off what other companies are doing to connect with customers who are talking about their products or brand names in social networking circles. But building them into the salesforce tools is smart because it allows the companies to mash data to resolve problems faster.
The Knowledge-as-a-service offering is interesting because it allows users to take the customer and support data - whether it be information from a service call or a quick fix tweeted by a customer - and incorporate it into the company’s knowledge base. From there, customers can upload the info into the public domain so other customers who might have the same issues with a product can find the answers from a trusted source, the company.
A final offering, Salesforce Answers, will allow customers to tap into the crowd of the Internet, posing questions over the Web or within Facebook to solicit the “knowledge of the crowd” for use to solve problems faster and more efficiently.
Salesforce’s social offerings will be available immediately while Knowledge-as-a-Service will be available later this year. Salesforce Answers will release early next year.
Previous coverage: Salesforce announces Twitter app; further validates power of cloud
Salesforce partners with Facebook, Amazon to spark more app development
September 8th, 2009
RightNow acquires social networking company HiveLive
RightNow on Tuesday said it will acquire HiveLive, an enterprise social networking company, for about $6 million in cash.
In a statement, RightNow, which provides customer relationship management software as a service, said it plans to add HiveLive’s technology to its platform. The move is the latest by vendors to provide so-called “social CRM.”
HiveLive will be integrated with RightNow’s November release. Increasingly, social media technology is being built into enterprise applications as a means to navigate corporate data and foster collaboration.
RightNow said HiveLive will allow it to offer prebuilt communities as a customer service channel, incorporate forums and blogs and mix it with its knowledge engine.
As for the financial details, RightNow said that HiveLive will add expenses of about $1 million per quarter due to headcount. The company reiterated its 2009 revenue target, but cut its non GAAP earnings per share target to a range of 27 cents a share to 31 cents a share. The previous target was 29 cents a share to 31 cents a share.
Wall Street is expecting 2009 earnings of 32 cents a share on revenue of $149 million for 2009.
August 31st, 2009
Trend Micro launches enhanced security, tools for tracking Web usage
It used to be that an IT administrator could warn employees about opening attachments from unknown sources or clicking on links from unknown e-mail senders as the first line of defense against spam, malware and other bad stuff on the Internet.
Today, the seedy side of the Internet comes in many different forms and from many different sources. Stop for a moment and think about the new places where malware might be buried, hidden, released and shared - a legitimate site that’s been hacked, a bit.ly link on Twitter or even an image on a Facebook friend’s page. Now, think about how many of these links you’ve clicked on from within the corporate network.
Trend Micro, in an effort to fight a modern-day Internet security war, is announcing today the launch of its Web Gateway Security, a product that does more than just enhance URL filtering or expand the database of trouble spots, red flags and other information used to keep its customers safe. The product also comes with tools that provide IT admins with detailed information about who on the network is doing what, when and from where - even just a few moments ago. The dashboard (pictured below) gives the admin a nearly real-time look at the users, the traffic and the sites being downloaded across the entire with just a glance.
It’s a tool that gives companies the ability to monitor for unusual activity and track it - nearly in real-time - to a particular site or particular user. No more waiting for reports the next morning to make some sort of discovery or identify the root of a problem.
Sure, there’s potential for companies to take “big brother” to a new level. But the execs at Trend Micro pointed instead to the ability to identify a problem at a company-approved site. If a particular user is using an excessive amount of bandwidth, for example, but isn’t visiting any out-of-the-ordinary sites, it may be the result of a problem at one of those sites.
Companies have long reserved the right to monitor or restrict Web surfing activities for the sake of protecting the network and sensitive company data. In a recent survey of IT executives by Trend Micro, 75 percent said they were concerned about unauthorized online activities at work and that nearly 70 percent would consider prohibiting access to certain sites, such as shopping or social networking properties. But the company also highlights another statistic - 42 percent say they’re willing to accept the risks of social networking on office computers because they see social networking as something that will benefit the company in the long run.
The company today also announced a virtual appliance, which allows companies to either dedicate their own standardized hardware to the app or install in a VMWare environment with other apps.
Previous coverage: Trend Micro wants enterprise to re-think security
August 25th, 2009
Why social networking tools will go enterprise: All your employees are using them
The social networking bandwagon is operating at near capacity: Only 18 percent of the online population is holding out from social media, according to Forrester Research.
To put that 18 percent in context 25 percent of the online population was socially inactive in 2008 and 44 percent were no-shows in 2007. Forrester’s third annual Social Technographics Profile, as highlighted by Josh Bernoff, reveals the following:
- Nearly a quarter of the U.S. online population create blogs, upload audio and video and write stories.
- Online forum traffic is down as folks move to Facebook and social networks.
- One in five adults categorize content with tags, RSS feeds and voting systems like Digg.
- Half of online adults are members of social networks.
- We’re all spectators that consume social content. Social participation increased across all age groups, but adults 35 to 54 really got on the bandwagon.
The enterprise takeaway: Given all your employees are now online social creatures it stands to reason that these technologies will make their way into corporate applications as features.
The report categorizes people into six categories: Creators, who write and upload multimedia; critics, who regularly comment; collectors, who aggregate information; joiners, who are relative newbies; spectators, who just watch; and inactives.
Here’s a look at the social trends by activity:
August 17th, 2009
MySpace to acquire social music service iLike for $20 million
News Corp.-owned social networking site MySpace is expected to close a deal to acquire social music service iLike this week, according to reports.
The deal, as detailed by TechCrunch (techmeme), will be the company’s first acquisition since chief executive Owen Van Natta took reins of the company in April 2009.
The price is “around $20 million,” a source told TechCrunch.
August 17th, 2009
Directory: 100 technology experts on Twitter
One the most important — and most difficult — things to do when you first start using Twitter is to develop a good list of people to follow. You can check your friends’ lists of followers, watch for interesting people that come up in @replies, and look for personalities and brands who promote their Twitter addresses. But, it can take several months to build up a good list. For technology professionals, I’m going to give you a big head start.
August 17th, 2009
10 valuable Twitter utilities for business users
One of the biggest reasons for Twitter’s growth and success is that the Twitter team allowed the service to be morphed and re-shaped by the user-base from the very beginning. We saw it happen in the way that the Twitter community instituted replies, retweets, and #hashtags.
But the real kicker was the fact that Twitter released an open API for developers. That allowed programmers to extend Twitter in lots of different directions and experiment with different tools and utilities to improve Twitter.
August 17th, 2009
A quick Twitter guide and glossary for business users
For a service that is remarkably simple, Twitter is often difficult for new users to understand and to quickly turn into something useful. In fact, the simplicity of Twitter can actually be a barrier in the beginning, because there’s not much to help a new user get started.
So in order to assist business users and IT professionals in getting up to speed on Twitter, I’ve put together this quick collection of 10 core Twitter concepts that you need to understand in order to turn Twitter into a powerful 140-character communications tool.
August 11th, 2009
FriendFeed should have been part of Facebook from Day One
True confessions time: I created a FriendFeed account some time back but never really used it. I was already deeply entrenched in Facebook by then and was starting to see some value in Twitter - so I jumped into FriendFeed and created an acccount.
That’s as far as I got.
Also see: Facebook to acquire FriendFeed
You see, FriendFeed was always so similar to Facebook that it kind of seemed a waste of my time to tap into two services to share the same details of my life with the same groups of people. Twitter, for me, had me interacting with strangers who were following me - so the idea of sharing a link to an interesting NYT story on Twitter was OK while sharing the details of my weekend adventure just felt creepy. Instead, those details were left for the group of people on Facebook that I’d already welcomed into my circle.
That’s not to say that FriendFeed wasn’t a smart service. Just take a look at how entrenched my colleague Andrew Mager is in the service.
For me, though, it just felt so much like Facebook that… well, you know. In fact, in a brief interview with FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit this afternoon, he joked that within a few weeks after the company launched in 2007, the FriendFeed folks and Facebook folks would bump into each other around Silicon Valley and had this ongoing joke about FriendFeed becoming part of Facebook.
The companies are located in neighboring towns in Silicon Valley - Facebook in Palo Alto and FriendFeed in Mountain View, home to the Google campus where the FriendFeed founders came from.
You see, when the dust settles on all of these “Facebook buys FriendFeed” blog posts - mine included - we’ll see that this was less about the FriendFeed service and more about the FriendFeed brain power.
I’m told that the team - all 12 of them - will start working for Facebook immediately, as in tomorrow, and move over to those Palo Alto offices. As for the FriendFeed service, the word is that there will be no immediate changes - and the company went so far as to tell CNET that “we absolutely wouldn’t shut (FriendFeed) down” - but I suspect we’ll see FriendFeed wrapped into Facebook sooner than you think.
After that, I suppose, I won’t have to feel guilty about being friendless on FriendFeed.
August 10th, 2009
Facebook to acquire FriendFeed
Facebook said today that it will acquire FriendFeed for an undisclosed amount. As part of the agreement, all 12 employees will join Facebook and the company’s founders will take on senior roles in Facebook’s engineering and product teams. (Techmeme)
In a statement, FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit said:
As we spent time with Mark (Zuckerberg) and his leadership team, we were impressed by the open, creative culture they’ve built and their desire to have us contribute to it. It was immediately obvious to us how passionate Facebook’s engineers are about creating simple, ground-breaking ways for people to share, and we are extremely excited to join such a like-minded group.
In a post on the FriendFeed blog, the company said that the FriendFeed site and service will continue to operate normally and that longer-term plans for the product as part of Facebook are still being figured out. Likewise, the company said the FriendFeed API will also continue to operate normally.
It shouldn’t come as a major surprise that these two companies would join forces. After all, there’s a lot of overlap between the two, though FriendFeed is one-up on Facebook with the real-time updates, compared to the Facebook updates that need to be refreshed. And really, how many friend update services do we really need?
In the end, it seems like Facebook gains some cool features but, more importantly, a great engineering team that has its roots in Google and some of that company’s most popular features, including Gmail and Google Maps.
August 7th, 2009
CEO Evan Williams reveals London is top Twitter city
Twitter CEO Evan Williams (@ev) was interviewed by Kirsty Wark on the BBC show Newsnight this week and revealed that London is the top Twitter-using city in the world.
Williams also answered a lot of tough questions, from whether Twitter creates a false sense of community to whether Twitter is replacing traditional journalism to why Twitter recently delayed maintenance during the post-election protests in Iran.
For insights on social networking in business and other tech topics, you can also follow me on Twitter: @JasonHiner
Jason Hiner is the Editor in Chief of TechRepublic, ZDNet's sister site. Read his blog Tech Sanity Check at hiner.techrepublic.com. You can also find him on Twitter, LinkedIn, and JasonHiner.com.
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