Included in its release today are Socialtext People, a social networking platform adapted for the enterprise; Socialtext Dashboard, a personalized dashboard of Web activity and OpenSocial widgets; and an upgrade to Socialtext Workspace, its enterprise wiki offering. Pricing for Dashboard and Workspace, which are included by default for everybody, starts at $10 per user per month. People is an optional module and costs $500 per month for up to 100 employees.
The company is also introducing a private beta of Socialtext Signals today, a microblogging interface (or a "Twitter for the enterprise"), which will be part of its "Socialtext 3.5" release.
"The platform story we want to tell is the value of when you take these kinds of technologies that have arisen first on the public Web for consumers... When you adapt them for the enterprise and have really tight integration between them, you get different types of functionality that can actually solve real business problems," says Ross Mayfield, co-founder of Socialtext.
Socialtext isn't the only company releasing enterprise social networking products. Others, like Socialcast and Igloo have come out with products with similar functions. But Mayfield says enterprise social networking has to be vastly different than the consumer Web social networking we're used to, in order to work.
"If you don't have a real purpose for the connection between people, what you get is people collecting VP trading cards," he says, "this side-activity popularity game that really doesn't add that much value besides providing a directory of people you can search and browse."
With the new Socialtext release, he says -- and unlike with the wiki as a standalone product -- employees share knowledge, but as a "byproduct" of getting their work done. For example, if an employee updates a wiki, or writes a blog post, those who subscribe to his or her Web activity will get a Dashboard alert.
Mayfield doesn't see enterprise social networking as a fad and believes over the next five to 10 years, enterprise will continue to be an innovative space. "Today, it's been a very interesting instrument for change management. True cultural change takes much longer and can never be the goal of deployment. We do see people shifting from a need-to-know culture to need-to-share culture," he says.
"At first glance you'd expect executives wouldn't value open sharing. But even with what we're releasing right now, when a CEO is able to drill down and find out who are these people that are working for me, what are they doing, the context in which they made decision... that helps people be better leaders."
Anything to help. If this tool can help upper management witness organizational members decision making and thus watch them bloom into better leaders, I am all for it, but I agree that the cash outlay can pretty quickly get pretty steep at 10 dollars per user per month!
I hope that the Socialtext folks haven't priced themselves out of range for the enterprise by this pricing structure, but if they are adding value somehow, it will likely be a huge success.
Let's not neglect the power of a comment. It's similar to these articles/blogs w/o any feedback mechanism...gee it was like that not too long ago on the web.
Anyhow, tweets today are somewhat one way. the power of the comment would add INTERACTION...call them twitments.
We are all familiar with the saying, knowledge is power.
The more information that is pervasive throughout an organization the more power each member has in being able to make sound strategic decisions that are in alignment with the organization's mission.
Services such as the one described in this article will enable for another avenue for information to flow freely throughout the organization.
Well, it's funny you isolate the stock market, because that's where I thought it might have value--not quite sure, but anytime there would be a short window for several people to know something extremely time-sensitive. I figure trading might hit that criteria.
Then, I flashed to an image of someone snappy junior manager working on a Powerpoint to brief executives on the applications for Twitter for the Enterprise. It became a sad image, because I bet it's really happening somewhere.
"does anybody see the obvious enterprise application? (i'm assuming there really is one)."
I've seen microblogging take off and multiply, NOT divide..especially on facebook. With that said, I'm sure there will be a benefit to the enterprise where new knowledge and newsflash is better shared than hoarded.. perhaps department or /team/groups wide syndication might be key - and again, I see the scope limited IF IT DOES NOT ALLOW FOR user comments.
I don't see any new toys for the enterprise being considered until after the unveiling of 3rd quarter reports however...and not to scare you Nicole, but both the 1987 and 1929 stock market crashes were in October.
The microblogging for the enterprise perhaps would be twitter for the enterprise behind the firewall and intranet?
Okay, I know it's my nature to make fun of Twitter, but in all seriousness, I am reacting to the phrase "twitter for the enterprise."
What would be good applications? I've been trying to think of an example. For instance, I can think of situations where a spontaneous blast text message might be handy, maybe to alert sales associates of a short-term contest, or maybe in my election world, a peppy pick-me-up to election workers that says something like "Keep Working Hard--just one more hour!"
I'm not sold on the value of that, but that's off-the-shelf Twitter, anyway. Does anybody see the obvious enterprise application? (I'm assuming there really is one).
I think we're into the stack problem here. How many different services charging "only" $10/month per user can your company stand? And when the stack of small charges gets too high (at home it's landline, broadband, satellite TV...and probably others I've forgotten that still show up on my credit card), then which will you sacrifice? I'm starting to find myself agreeing with Richard Stallman who says keep your important stuff on your own computer, and don't let third parties control your destiny!
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