Inside Motley Fool's Enterprise Social Network

By David F. Carr, InformationWeek, January 9, 2012

The Motley Fool established an enterprise social network to combat portal, wiki, and email overload—and it's working.

Enterprise social networking turned out to be a foolish choice for the Motley Fool, which is to say it turned out to be a good thing.

Founded in 1993, the Motley Fool operates today as a financial news, analysis, and discussion website for investors, including premium services for subscribers. Based in Alexandria, Va., the Fool employs about 250 people, including a few in London and Australia.

Yammer. The intranet site Motley Fool created with Socialtext is branded Jingle, after the jingle bells on a jester's hat. "It was intended to fill voids that weren't being filled, and also to replace some tools we had that were based on old technology that is no longer supported," said Jeb Bishop, head of creative services for Motley Fool.