March 3, 2010, Palo Alto, California
Socialtext today announced the release of Socialtext 4.0, the next major version of its enterprise social software [1] platform. The new release enables employees to mobilize in new ways around projects, challenges and opportunities. Socialtext 4.0 delivers new capabilities that span across all of the company's social software modules. It includes microblogging channels and filtered activity streams to help people digest the information colleagues share with them throughout the day, as well as new tools for group productivity.
"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."
Socialtext 4.0 is available on all of Socialtext's flexible deployment options [2], including its unique on-site managed appliance, which delivers the security enterprises need without requiring IT resources or developers to update and maintain the software. Microblogging channels and filtering are also available on the Socialtext Microblogging Appliance [3].
Collaborative Groups - Collaborative Groups give people the social software tools they need to quickly circulate knowledge, ideas, and updates among team members, and get work done faster. People can create a group for any purpose, such as to work on a task or project, or to share around a common interest. Anyone can create a Collaborative Group on the fly, complete with a group home page with an activity stream of group member updates, a dedicated microblogging channel, and one or more workspaces [5].
For administrator ease, Collaborative Groups can be synchronized with existing groups in your company's LDAP or corporate directory. Collaborative Groups can be configured for privacy to meet the business needs of the group. A group can be listed, with its membership designated as either "request-to-join" or open. Groups with these privacy settings are discoverable, and lead to increased participation from across the organization. Alternatively, a group can be unlisted, which makes it completely private.
Microblogging Channels - The popularity of Socialtext Signals, a secure enterprise microblogging tool [6], has spawned the need for people to filter the short messages colleagues share with them throughout the day. Want to view all the Signals from the "Operations" Group? Simply pull from an easy drop down menu to see their Signals. People can post a Signal to one group they belong to, or all of them. This capability is available on both Socialtext's browser-based interface or Socialtext Desktop, the Adobe AIR application.
Microblogging Search - As Socialtext Signals has hit critical mass in large organizations, the messages shared by employees have become a valuable corporate asset. Socialtext 4.0 provides the ability to browse and search this new information resource, and also the ability to target your search to messages from a specific group. The new microblogging search capabilities are useful for discovering new information that can inform a project or decision, and also to quickly pinpoint specific information. You can also "flashback" from any microblogging message to see the context of the discussion at the time it was published.
Activity Stream Filtering - Activity streams provide an extremely useful way for people to know what is going on. With Socialtext 4.0, you can view the activity stream of any group to which you belong, so you can quickly zero in on what's transpired in the group. Alternatively, you can view the activity stream of any individual, of all the people you follow, or of the entire company.
Presence Indication - With user names from popular IM services in Socialtext profiles [7], you can now hover over a person's avatar to see their presence, which lets teammates know who is reachable at a given moment.
Socialtext addresses the critical issues organizations face as their people and teams struggle to share knowledge, ideas and expertise. With Socialtext's enterprise social software platform, people and teams are synchronized, highly engaged and able to move fast. The Socialtext collaboration platform employs a broad set of social software technologies including microblogging, social networking, filtered activity streams, widget-based dashboards, blogs and wikis. Socialtext offers both the convenience of SaaS and the security of an on-site appliance, for the fastest time to value. More than 6,500 businesses world-wide have accelerated their business performance with Socialtext, including Mayo Clinic, McGraw-Hill, OSIsoft, Symantec, The Washington Post, Egon Zehnder International, and Epitaph Records. Learn more about Socialtext at www.socialtext.com [8].
See Socialtext 4.0 in action in this short demo video.
Links:
[1] http://www.fiercecio.com/products/index.php
[2] http://www.fiercecio.com/products/deploymentoptions.php
[3] http://www.fiercecio.com/products/deploymentoptions_microblogging.php
[4] http://www.fiercecio.com/products/demo_overview.php
[5] http://www.fiercecio.com/products/wiki.php
[6] http://www.fiercecio.com/products/microblogging.php
[7] http://www.fiercecio.com/products/socialnetworking.php
[8] http://www.socialtext.com