Latest News from Web 2.0 Magazine

Who Was First to Anticipate New Media's Coming Importance?

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:15:00 EDT

It is often said that becoming an entrepreneur is the modern-day equivalent of choosing to be a pioneer on the old frontier. Only people with certain strength of fiber decide to found companies. They tend to be forward thinkers by nature, natural born pathfinders. But in age that loves metrics, how do you measure the extent to which the true trail-blazer is ahead of the pack? How prescient does a go-getter's prescience need to be to qualify for the label of business 'visionary'? Well let us take the current new-media movement as one example. The precursor to that, undeniably, was the rapid popularization of Internet itself - without which New Media would not ever have been possible.

Stealth Cloud Computing Startup To Launch at Cloud Expo

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:45:00 EDT

Cloud Computing Journal caught up with the CEO of a major new player in the fast-emerging Cloud ecosystem - a CEO who has taken an interesting and unusual decision. While signing up as the Platinum Plus Sponsor of the 5th International Cloud Expo, he and his company have decided to remain completely anonymous. Who or what might this company might be, only seasoned industry analysts can even guess at, let alone know. But perhaps there are some inadvertent clues among the answers given here to the latest in our "Exclusive Q&A" series. Enjoy!

Boardwalktech Enables Collaborative S&OP Processes for Manufacturing Customers

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:25:18 EDT

Boardwalktech announced today that its manufacturing customers have realized significant gains in key business metrics utilizing the Boardwalk Collaboration Platform (BCP) as a collaborative S&OP solution. "Collaborative planning is done mostly using spreadsheets shared manually between users," said Andrew Duncan, CEO of Boardwalktech. "This inefficiency is costing manufacturers real money due to poor forecast accuracy and excess inventory. We're focused on helping manufacturers remove this inefficiency and improving the bottom line."

Smart Grid Visionaries Converge in Palm Springs for The Networked Grid 2010

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:12:35 EDT

Greentech Media Inc., the industry-leading online media company covering green technology news and analysis, announces the company's premier two-day summit event on next-generation smart grid infrastructure and applications, The Networked Grid 2010. The event will take place at the beautiful Hyatt Grand Champions Resort, Villas and Spa in Palm Springs, CA on May 18-19, 2010.

Open Source Alternatives to LiveCycle Data Services

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:15:00 EDT

Development of enterprise Flex/Java rich Internet applications benefits from using automated data integration solutions and productivity tools. Currently Adobe offers LiveCycle Data Services ES2 (LCDS) and open source BlazeDS 3. While LCDS is certainly a great piece of software for those who are looking to support thousands concurrent users via the most efficient communication protocols, its high licensing cost makes LCDS not affordable for the vast majority of the enterprise applications let alone small businesses and startups.

Will Social Networks Lead to a Community Cloud?

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 07:00:00 EDT

On Thursday 25th March 2010, people from an estimated 200 cities across the globe will come together to celebrate and support the second Global Twestival. Defined by Twitter as ‘a way to take part in a global event that transforms lives’, Twestival was created last year by London based Amanda Rose, an events-minded entrepreneur, who believed that Twitter’s users could be brought together for the common good.

Exciting New Conference Developments Announced for the info360: AIIM EXPO + CONFERENCE

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:33:28 EDT

Many exciting new speakers, sessions and tracks have recently been added to the educational offerings at info360: AIIM Expo + Conference taking place April 20-22, 2010 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA.

Financial Social Media Firm Advisōlocity to Develop New Site Content

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:46:00 EDT

Pat Parkin, Principal of S.P. PARKIN & CO. Wealth Advisors, contracted this week with financial social media firm, Advisōlocity, to develop fresh content and a Search Engine Optimization strategy (SEO) for the firm’s new web site. “Additionally, we will evolve the firm’s graphic standards and improve the site’s navigation,” said Zach Hedges, Advisōlocity’s technology director. Mr. Parkin said the goal of the effort is to convey a high-quality, professional identity that is tied in with the firm’s comprehensive client service model. “We are building a legacy of relationships,” he added. “I think the digital world will help me provide additional value to my clients and their families.” D. Bruce Johnston, who recently co-founded the Advisōlocity agency with Mr. Hedges and John Drachman, said, “We offer a comprehensive menu of financial social media solutions to financial advisors like S.P. PARKIN & CO. Wealth Advisors. As they grow their business, our services can grow with them too.”

Kontiki Receives Network Products Guide 2010 Product Innovation Award

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:01:31 EDT

Kontiki, the leading provider of enterprise video solutions, announced today that Network Products Guide, an industry-leading information technology research and advisory guide, has named Kontiki VideoCenter the winner of a 2010 Product Innovation Award. This annual award recognizes innovative and ground-breaking products in all areas of information technology.

Is This the End of Enterprise Software?

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:45:00 EDT

The future of enterprise software is the platform. No software company has all the smart people in the world on its payroll. Apple recognized this and created the App Store. Google are now doing the same. These new cloud platforms will unleash unprecedented innovation and creativity throughout all areas of business and the web, with thousands of new apps being created that will revolutionize IT.

It's Tuesday and You Know What That Means

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:37:00 EST

In West Texas, we have wind gusts that match no other; we love our football; sunsets are at their best with no trees to block your view; oil means a lot to us and Tuesday is for Mexican Food tacos! Kent Dean, Director of Field Marketing, with Rosa’s Café recently spoke to our local chapter of the American Advertising Federation. They are so well known for their Taco Tuesdays that when he throws out the statement, “It’s Tuesday” on their Facebook page hundreds of responses come in immediately with fans chiming in that it’s “Taco Tuesday”. His topic focused on social media – does it really work for business? Engaging and entertaining, Kent shared how Rosa’s has capitalized with brand advocates and a loyal customer base that were fast becoming active evangelists for their brand. He outlined some best practices for their brand from “Rosa’s Point of View”.

Digital Footprint and Virtual Social Influence

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST

I’ve been thinking about my presence on the Internet from the early days, from my time at Argonne National Labs near Chicago in 1988-1989 and from my graduate school days at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1989-1992. That was even before the web browser days, which didn’t come out till 1993-94... I’ve been thinking about my presence on the internet from the early days, from my time at Argonne National Labs near Chicago in 1988-1989 and from my graduate school days at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1989-1992. That was even before the web browser days, which didn’t come out till [...]

Latest Release of Inmagic Presto Strengthens Social Knowledge Network Capabilities for Enterprise Users

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:00:31 EST

Inmagic® has launched the latest release of Inmagic® Presto, an application that enables non-technical business users to create and manage Social Knowledge Networks (SKN). Presto 3.3 incorporates significant enhancements to productivity, usability, and security, and deepens integration with Microsoft® SharePoint®, giving users bidirectional query and access capabilities.

Collaborative Business Workspaces

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:30:00 EST

In the recent past, there were multiple collaboration and social networking platform offerings from large and successful ISVs such as Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), Google Wave, and the SalesForce Chatter collaboration cloud. The common value-messaging across these offerings was on enabling firewall collaboration, improving employee productivity, increasing business efficiency, promoting innovation through collaboration, and enabling people-to-people connect as well. Enterprises are increasingly adopting collaboration for new products and services innovation. Similarly, many others are integrating line-of-business (LOB) and other enterprise applications with an organization’s communication and collaboration infrastructure to improve the effectiveness of the applications and thus improve employee productivity. The new generation of collaboration platforms helps realize the vision of creating collaborative business workspaces by tying together a variety of LOB/enterprise applications toward a seamless front end and collaboration enablement for an innovative environment.

Google Sets Up Google Apps Store

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:30:00 EST

Apple is beginning to know how Xerox PARC felt. Like Apple did to PARC, Google has lifted from Apple again this time on behalf of Google Apps and set up a Google Apps Marketplace where third parties can sell business programs that integrate with Google Apps to the two million companies and 25 million users that have reportedly adopted Google Apps in the last three years. The marketplace, which will irritate Microsoft, launched Tuesday with some 50 programs from companies like Intuit and Atlassian and more reportedly coming from companies like NetSuite and SuccessFactors. Skytap is kicking in its cloud.

Bitrix Introduces the D.I.G.(TM) Engine: the Ultimate in Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search Technology

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:00:34 EST

Bitrix, Inc. (http://www.bitrixsoft.com), a technology trendsetter in business communications solutions, introduces D.I.G.(TM) technology - an advanced search engine developed specifically for enterprise intranets and websites that enables high-performance data search in texts, media content and documents with smart ranking, sorting and display. The engine is available in the company's flagship products - Bitrix Intranet Portal and Bitrix Site Manager.

Federal Open Government Directive, Social Media, SEO & Information Sharing

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:56:00 EST

Last week’s “Meeting the Open Government Directive” (OGD) conference hosted by GovDelivery (new owners of the popular GovLoop.com public/private social media forum) showcased a number of very important, relevant initiatives and ideas to help Federal Agencies comply with this important White House mandate. The directive comes from a memorandum signed by President Obama on his very first day in office, to all federal agencies directing them to break down barriers to transparency, participation, and collaboration between the federal government and the people it is to serve. Most agencies have already started their compliance initiatives, creating “Open Government” pages (for example at DHS) to highlight shared data sources and programs, and all agencies are required to present their holistic strategies (i.e. their “Open Government Plan”) by April 7th of this year. Ideas from the public regarding how agencies should approach their Open Government Plans are currently being accepted through March 19th, 2010, at specific agency pages under Ideascale.com – this “citizen engagement tool” and crowdsourcing online social media service was wisely implemented as a single program investment and IT infrastructure under GSA, shared across all agencies. This is a great opportunity to create and submit opinions and ideas regarding government information-sharing transparency – this kind of crowdsourcing has already been proving successful to the Data.gov initiative, with the open dialogue hosted at datagov.ideascale.com.

Virtusa Announces Suite of Services for Transforming Organizations to Enterprise 2.0

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:01:11 EST

Social Media, Video and Mobile Channels Fuel Collaboration for the Enterprise

Mainsoft Launches Harmony

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:00:00 EST

Mainsoft Corporation, a provider of cross-platform interoperability software, on Tuesday announced Harmony - free software for Microsoft Outlook that provides full-featured access to Google Docs documents or Microsoft SharePoint® document libraries from within e-mail. Based on the premise that it should be easier for people to work together on documents, Harmony brings some of the best collaboration and document-sharing tools into Outlook, where users spend a large part of their workday. Currently, most Outlook users store documents on their local hard drives and share them as e-mail attachments, resulting in wasted time trying to find the latest version of a document and merging feedback from various people. The new Harmony sidebar enables people to share a single, centralized copy of the document, eliminating the many intermediary steps associated with sending e-mail attachments back and forth.

Welcome 2010 & Cloud Computing

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:45:00 EST

We just finished the first decade of this century/millennium. The early part of this decade saw great worry about the Year 2000 problem. Much gloom and doom was predicted, but things passed off smoothly. No apocalyptic upheaval. As we usher into the next decade, the biggest buzzword is “Cloud Computing”, a rapprochement of ASP, SaaS, SOA, Virtualization, Grid Computing, Enterprise 2.0, etc. All these buzzwords have been making the rounds over past few years. Finally, computing as a “utility” seems practical and doable. Amazon took the lead in introducing AWS (Amazon Web Services) way back in 2003. It then brought in Storage as a Service concept via S3 (Simple Shared Storage). It also introduced EC2 (Elastic Computing Cloud), where Infrastructure as a Service became viable. I just read a nice summary of this written by M.R. Rangaswamy of the Sand Hill Group. While the momentum is on, MR says large enterprises are going to be slow adapters. Much cloud adoption is in the SMB arena where lower TCO and capex override any concern for security and scale. Older vendors like IBM will offer a hybrid model – In-house systems and cloud. This is a no-brainer, as there is a huge legacy of production systems in Fortune 1000 companies running in the premises. But “pure cloud” vendors like Google, Amazon, and SalesForce.com will push for “cloud-only” approach.

5 Questions You Should Answer Before Launching Widget Banking

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:51:00 EST

WorkLight will host a free webinar on March 16, 2010, that discusses widget technology and its use by banks, credit unions, credit card companies, brokerage firms and other financial institutions.

The End of IT 1.0 As We Know It Has Begun

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:00:00 EST

You may wonder whether it’s too early to make the call given the lack of interoperability standards, security concerns, and common definition of cloud computing. Well, the IPTV space shares many of the same similarities – emerging technology, emerging standards, emerging adoption, varying definitions, and yet the call was made in that space. Cloud computing is a shot across the bow for the giants of the IT industry. They are on notice. Certainly, some will make the transition, slowly, at the speed which the overall market develops or slower, as they have no incentive to drive the market and rapidly cannibalize their existing businesses for a less lucrative business model even if it is more cost effective, flexible, and efficient for most of their clients.

Top IPO Contenders in 2010

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:30:00 EST

As we start this year, hope is mounting on a vibrant IPO market, better than last couple of years. This article lists 20 companies that are hot candidates for IPO. The list has some well-known names like Facebook, Skype, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg, Yelp, LiveOps, and Tesla Motors. The less known names are - Associated Content, BrightCove, Chegg, Demand Media Etsy, Exact Target, Gilt Group, Glam Media, Rearden Commerce, Workday, and Zynga. Workday is the new company founded by Peoplesoft founder David Duffield. It's a SaaS-based HR and ERP company.

Microsoft's Germans Are Better Than Yours for Cloud Computing

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:45:00 EST

Charney explained that identity solutions that provide more secure and private access to both on-site and cloud applications are key to enabling a safer, more trusted enterprise and Internet. As part of that effort, Microsoft today released a community technology preview of the U-Prove technology, which enables online providers to better protect privacy and enhance security through the minimal disclosure of information in online transactions. To encourage broad community evaluation and input, Microsoft announced it is providing core portions of the U-Prove intellectual property under the Open Specification Promise, as well as releasing open source software development kits in C# and Java editions. Charney encouraged the industry, developers and IT professionals to develop identity solutions that help protect individual privacy.

FIG Partners Selects xRM Global's Wealth Solution for Research Dissemination and Relationship Management

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:30:38 EST

xRM Global Inc. ("xRM Global") (TSX VENTURE: XRM) has developed and operates the xRM Utility for some of the largest global enterprises. The xRM Utility is a High Touch - High Trust core infrastructure that manages the most valued relationships across the enterprise.

China and India – Spider and Starfish

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST

Which is better? A structured, top-down approach to problem solving or an unstructured, collaborative one? The first approach is the traditional approach - but agile development methodology, open source movement and Web 2.0 follow the second approach. Last week I came across two seemingly unrelated essays (one blog post – Understanding the Nature of Self-Organizing Teams by Jim Highsmith and one article – Don’t Underestimate India’s Consumers by John Lee) - but both discuss Structured vs Unstructured - Order vs Chaos. The blog post provides a snapshot of the book – The Starfish and Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom. Last week I came across 2 seemingly unrelated essays (one blog post "Understanding the Nature of Self-Organizing Teams" by Jim Highsmith and one article "Don't Underestimate India's Consumers" by John Lee) The blog post provides a snapshot of the book "The Starfish and Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations", by Ori Brafman. “A spider is an eight-legged arachnid that has a head attached to a central body. Pull a leg off a spider and most can still walk, even if a little lopsided. Cut off the head and the spider dies. Not so the starfish. While many people know that if you cut off a starfish’s leg, it will grow back, most don’t know that a starfish’s major organs are replicated throughout its body. One species, Linckia, can regenerate an entire starfish from each of its severed parts. A starfish is a decentralized network.”

Coveo Enterprise Search 6.1 approfondit ses fonctionnalités Enterprise 2.0, ses interfaces de recherche et ses outils d’analyse; Coveo offre maintenant le volet de recherche Outlook intégrée

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:02:15 EST

Coveo, l’un des plus importants fournisseurs de solutions d’entreprise pour la recherche et l’accès à l’information et de solutions d’accès à l’information sur les clients, annonce aujourd’hui la disponibilité de sa plateforme Enterprise Search 6.1. Cette dernière version propose de nouvelles interfaces, des fonctionnalités Enterprise 2.0 étendues, une connectivité améliorée, des statistiques de recherche et l’indexation complète des postes de travail et des courriels.

Coveo Enterprise Search 6.1 Expands Enterprise 2.0 Capabilities, Search Interfaces, Analytics; Coveo Now Available with Integrated Outlook Sidebar

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:37:27 EST

Coveo, a leading provider of enterprise search and customer information access solutions, today announced the availability of its Enterprise Search Platform Version 6.1. This latest release features new interfaces, expanded Enterprise 2.0 capabilities, additional connectivity, search analytics, and complete desktop and email indexing.

Medical Marketing Company Aurora Information Technology Announces PC Magazine's "Best Software of the Year" and Rollout of Bitrix Internet Portal Software Solutions

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:37:18 EST

Further cementing its foothold in enterprise content management excellence, Bitrix's flagship product, Bitrix Intranet Portal, was bestowed "Best Software of the Year" by PC Magazine for a second consecutive year. As Certified Gold Bitrix Partners, medical website design firm, Aurora Information Technology (Aurora IT), believes Bitrix could not be more deserving of this distinction. Aurora IT has been offering Bitrix products to its clients for many years, and stands behind the integrity of their products.

J.R. Simplot Company Deploys VB Enterprise 2.0 to Support Serializing, Managing and Tracking Products

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:56:19 EST

Web 2.0 Key to Collaboration and Agility Says United Planet

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:49:00 EST

London, 25 February 2010 - According to United Planet (www.unitedplanet.com), one of the leading developers of enterprise portal software in Europe, the opportunities presented by social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook have paved the way for a new kind of teamwork for business. Web 2.0 applications such as wikis, blogs and forums, have made it possible to support business-internal collaboration and knowledge management, transforming companies into an Enterprise 2.0 organisation.

Instead of 'losing' or 'hiding' company knowledge inside employees' heads, Web 2.0 functionality in the form of wikis and blogs can provide an easy to use outlet for experience and expertise. This new way of working and sharing knowledge mirrors the Facebook approach to communicating. As this approach is very popular outside of work, employees are happy to engage with it, creating an invaluable tool for collecting, archiving and sharing knowledge with other employees in the future.

Employees can post past experiences or personal information in a company wiki, making this available to their colleagues on the portal. They can share information in forums or contact one another quickly when required which is particularly useful for project groups. The ability to exchange opinions on important topics of difficult issues informally in the run-up to a meeting means that the time needed to plan and conduct such meetings is significantly reduced.

Axel Wessendorf, managing director at United Planet, said: "Modern portal solutions such as Intrexx are equipped with templates for Web 2.0 applications such as wikis, blogs and forums, as standard. As a new way of doing business, Enterprise 2.0 not only allows companies to pool distributed knowledge on the central data platform of the enterprise portal, enabling the company to profit directly from the knowledge and experience of its individual employees. It also ensures that knowledge is easily transferred across multiple locations."

"Agility will be vital for all businesses going forward and Enterprise 2.0 will make it much easier to share and discuss new ideas, and develop innovative solutions in a collaborative manner without delay. Accelerated distribution of information throughout an organisation not only empowers employees to learn from the knowledge of others, it also makes a real difference to employee morale and encourages team spirit," he added.

For further information about Intrexx, as well as free live demos of Web 2.0 applications such as wikis, blogs and forums, visit www.unitedplanet.com.

-Ends-

About United Planet
United Planet is one of the leading developers of Enterprise Portal software in Europe. Its Java based, standard software Intrexx enables companies to create Enterprise Portals, Intranets and Web Applications cost effectively, without the need for programming by using 'drag and drop' technology and pre-created solutions for quality management, document management and process management to optimise internal workflow. Intrexx runs on Windows as well as on Linux and Sun Solaris, and incorporates several Business Adapters to ensure that third-party data from Lotus Notes and other ERP solutions can be easily integrated in the Intrexx Portal. A special Business Adapter for MS Office also makes it possible to integrate and edit Microsoft Office Documents without the need for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). United Planet is headquartered in Freiburg, Germany and also has offices in Windsor. The company is supported by over 100 Business Partners worldwide.

For further information, please contact:
Mel Oxford
E: meloxford@tiscali.co.uk
T: 07515 632065

UBM TechWeb's Enterprise 2.0 Conference Announces Keynote Speakers, Cisco Joins Line-up

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:26:14 EST

Program Focused on Driving Business Value Inside the Enterprise, Explores Entire Enterprise 2.0 Lifecycle

Palo Alto Networks Extends Lead with Next-Generation Firewall Software

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:01:29 EST

Celebrates 1,000th enterprise customer milestone

Bitrix(R) Intranet Portal Goes SaaS

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:00:27 EST

Bitrix, Inc. (http://www.bitrixsoft.com), a technology trendsetter in business communications solutions, introduces a new initiative for hosting/service providers that enables them to deliver Bitrix(R) Intranet Portal through a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) deployment model. This allows customers to leverage the advantages of on-demand software usage and deployment and unveils to providers a new opportunity for business growth.

Open-Xchange & Bull Germany to Offer Hosted Groupware

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:00:00 EST

Bull will now offer its German customers Open-Xchange mail and groupware. They can use Open-Xchange as a hosted solution provided by Bull or run it in-house as on-premise installation – and switch between the types of operation any time they like.

SAP Releases Cloud Computing Beta

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST

SAP has made its 12sprints collaborative decision-making project available via public beta and has formed a strategic research partnership with The 2.0 Adoption Council – a peer forum of IT and business leaders and thinkers who are discovering new ways of working in modern organizations. Both of these moves demonstrate SAP’s commitment to helping companies bring the power of Web 2.0 technologies and trusted information into their business processes. 12sprints, the codename for a new collaborative decision-making application, is the first and only software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that brings together people, information and methods to drive swift, informed decision-making.

F5 Web Media On-Demand

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST

We’ve had some exciting announcements of late, like the BIG-IP Edge Gateway and the BIG-IP LTM VE, and lots of great content has been developed to highlight the benefits of these solutions. It’s been a while since I’ve updated you about our Social Media sites and the various ways we deliver F5 content. More than a year ago, we started to follow and contribute text, audio and video to the multitude of public Social Media outlets.

Social Media ROI

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:36:00 EST

I attended a great Tech Breakfast Club event this morning near my home in Northern Virginia, in which three panelists from local B2B technology companies shared the ROI gained and lessons learned by using social media to engage prospects and customers online.

SafeNet (3^rd largest provider of information security solutions in the world)

ROI: $1 million in revenue last year directly from LinkedIn Information Security Community, with 4 members of SafeNet marketing team, systems engineering, product management each spending just a few hours a week interacting with and managing the community.

Holger Schulze (@HolgerSchulze), Director of Product Marketing and Marketing Operations, and founder of the InfoSec Community on LinkedIn, shared how he started the LinkedIn group on his own as an experiment, only to see it grow to 50,000+ members in just over 2 years.

The company carefully measures ROI by tracking the original sources of leads and sales conversion via:

Marketbright marketing automation software
Systems engineers and product managers reporting on which members they directly connect with SafeNet sales for follow up (upon member request)
Salesforce.com

An important note is that Holger also started a company LinkedIn group for SafeNet at the same time he started the InfoSec group, and the SafeNet group barely attracted any members so it was turned into an internal company group for employees. This is really valuable, as it confirms that people aren’t going to join a group to hear about your company, but will actively join groups that focus on specific topics that interest them.

(Stay tuned for a video interview with Holger coming in 2 weeks!)

Vocus (Public relations software provider)

ROI: $500K in revenue last year directly from social media

Frank Strong (@Frank_Strong, @Vocus), Director of Public Relations, shared how Vocus has shifted its focus and made its marketing and PR teams into a type of in-house publishing company in order to consistently produce content in a variety of formats that PR professionals find highly valuable and want more of.

Social media is used to support their strong content strategy by effectively distributing it to interested followers who then share it with others, but Vocus is very careful to share just as much content that wasn’t created by them as it does its own. They discovered through trial and error that focusing too much on their own content turned prospects and customers off and eventually found the right balance.

Vocus primarily uses Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as those are the most popular social media venues used by their audiences. To measure ROI, the company uses its own products to track the original sources of leads, and Salesforce.com to track sales conversions.

CompTIA (Non-profit trade association advancing the global interests of information technology professionals and companies)

ROI: Significant increase in new memberships and renewals

Susan Cato (@susancato, @CompTIA), Senior Director of Marketing, Web and New Media, shared how over the past 2 years the organization has focused on a two-part social media strategy. First, like Vocus, the marketing team functions much like publishers, with an editorial calendar 6 month plan that provides the framework and details each team member needs to effectively and efficiently create content. This isn’t a rigid plan though, Susan noted that flexibility is key as you discover what types of content are successful (and not) and make appropriate changes. Also, inserting content on-the-fly to stay timely is important in order to stay on top of big industry news that impacts members.

The second part of the organization’s strategy has been to create and nurture several online communities, each with a very specific niche focus. Although it’s clear each community is a part of CompTIA, each is branded separately, has its own online presence, and is open to anyone, not just CompTIA members. For example, SoftwareCEO is one of their online communities specifically for software company entrepreneurs and executives. These communities have been very successful for attracting new members that they otherwise wouldn’t have, as well as retaining current members who have the opportunity to connect and interact with peers.

The organization created over 60 LinkedIn groups to support each of its online communities as well as for the organization itself. They also use Twitter and Facebook.

CompTIA uses website analytics software and marketing automation software to track the original sources of leads, and CRM software to track sales conversions.

Lessons Learned by 3 Panelists

Social media must be ingrained in a company’s culture, it’s not just a strategy
Social media won’t be effective without a very strong content strategy
Before venturing into social media:
1. Have a plan for how to deal with people making negative comments about you, company, or organization so everyone knows who will respond and what actions to take (and not take). Be ready, be quick to respond, and be genuine but recognize there will always be people that will never be happy no matter what you do. Deal with the “haters” respectfully but focus on those who are positive in order to establish and build a following.
2. Train employees taking part on behalf of company on how to use tools (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs, etc.) and guidelines for type of content to share and how to interact with prospects, customers, partners, and others
When providing content to several different communities, offer exclusive access to some content to one community for a limited time, and exclusive access to other content to another community for a limited time, in order to achieve higher perceived value and keep people engaged long-term
“Happy accidents” are common when experimenting with social media, don’t be afraid to try and test new ideas

The Tech Breakfast Club are regional quarterly meeting of B2B high-tech public relations and marketing executives hosted by tech PR firm TechImage. If you’d like to attend a future event, connect with Mary Eggert.

Telogis® Announces Brand Revision, Launches New Web Site

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:03:24 EST

Telogis, Inc., the platform for location intelligence, announces a new Web site and rebrand of its suite of solutions to highlight the power of its integrated product offering and global capabilities.

NewsGator Unveils iPhone and iPad Clients for Microsoft SharePoint

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:00:08 EST

Also introduces new, better ways to microblog for improved Enterprise 2.0 productivity

Innovation and Risk in the Clouds - II

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST

For others, that will build and support their own enterprise cloud environments, the dynamic nature of cloud computing – with servers, networks, and storage dynamically showing up and disappearing from the environment, it will be a difficult and challenging model to manage; particularly if the organization does not adapt its legacy business management culture and approach, for the new environment. Though by far, the greatest risk that I see is the failure to recognize the potential that lies within cloud computing to transform organizations.

Patterns of Excellence: Building a Learning Organization

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:31:00 EST

I've been working in the software development industry for coming up on 20 years now. In fact in 2011 will officially mark my 20 year anniversary since graduating from college and entering industry. Over that time I have worked in a wide variety of roles, some of which include junior developer, senior developer, systems architect, chief [...]

Little Money, Big Dream

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:15:00 EST

A story of how two young entrepreneurs built their first entertainment company in the USA under the age of twenty-five. Foreignity launched their touring department by producing and marketing two-time Grammy nominated, multi-Platinum artist Flo Rida's first Australian tour after his record breaking success with his single, ‘Low'. By means of their own funds and the faith of a few close friends they succeeded in funding their dream success during the greatest recession since the Great Depression. And they are just getting star ted. Here are some personalized accounts from Natasha Pestano and LA Rice, the young and driven founders of Foreignity, LLC, just as P Diddy (Sean Combs) once said, "Can't Stop, Won't Stop."

Google Buzz’s Rocky Start May Lead to Gmail-Free Version

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:15:00 EST

Google Buzz’s Rocky Start May Lead to Gmail-Free Version

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

Google Buzz’s Rocky Start May Lead to Gmail-Free Versioninternet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant. There’s no question that Google Buzz has been the topic of the week. Google took the tech and social media industries by storm as it launched its new social media product. Already, Buzz has shown a great deal of potential, but it has also created more than a few problems and concerns. Privacy has been the key concern. The most heavily publicized and perhaps most illustrative example of this can be found in this ...

Inmagic Announces New Executive Vice President of Sales and Business Development

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:05:15 EST

Inmagic today announced that Tony Florence has joined the company’s management team as Executive Vice President of Sales and Business Development. Mr. Florence will focus on driving the company’s global sales strategy and business development initiatives to align with increasing adoption of Inmagic^® Presto^® across enterprise organizations.

Money, Happiness, and The Importance of Letting Go

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:45:00 EST

I learned a very important lesson a few days ago. I was discussing my new website with Matt Cheuvront, my web designer. He and I were talking through what I wanted my website design to look like and even my personal mission for the site. It was quite important that I figured out where I wanted Stuff For Success to go. For those of you that don’t know, it has become quite large. Despite what my e-mail subscriber count says, the website following has become successful enough that it needs to have a purpose or it WILL fall apart, so thank you all SO much for your support.

Twitter & Facebook Get a Buzz Cut

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:15:00 EST

Reportedly unable to buy Twitter last summer, Google got Twitter-ized Tuesday. It has integrated a self-affirming, “I tweet therefore I am,” so-called babble-style capability smacking a lot of Facebook and Twitter into Gmail so users can share media and status updates with a connected circle of their friends – and the web, if they choose, where it will be indexed and searchable.

blueKiwi Launches Free Version of Social Business Platform for External Online Communities

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:00:43 EST

New Fruitful Conversations Community Brings Together Marketers, Community Managers and Social Media Thought Leaders to Share Best Practices

Google to Join the Babble Crowd: WSJ

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:30:00 EST

Reportedly unable to just buy Twitter last summer, Google is going Twitteresque. According the Wall Street Journal, Gmail will be adding a self-affirming, pointless babble, “I tweet therefore I am” capability in the style of Facebook and Twitter to its skills so users can share media and status updates with a connected circle of their friends.

Start Being Visible and Valuable in One Minute

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 07:52:00 EST

Time is a scarcity. We’re moving, receiving, listening, answering and engaging at speeds faster than ever before. Have you ever watched a video longer than one minute and become impatient? Proof positive that we must accelerate to even participate! The...