Coverage & Awards: 2009

Top 10 Enterprise Products of 2009

ReadWriteWeb, December 7, 2009

Socialtext is "a collaboration service with real-time, microblogging integrations. In the past year, the company has continued to innovate - most recently with SocalCalc, the spreadsheet service that allows for multiple users to collaborate simultaneously across multiple documents."

Twitter Alternatives That Are All Business

CIO, December 1, 2009

Tim Eby, general manager of St. Louis Public Radio (SLPR), was an early adopter of Twitter and "discovered the power of it in terms of communicating information, building community and sharing information," he says. When discussions arose about building a company intranet for the radio station, Eby aimed to make microblogging a part of it.

After evaluating several microblogging tools, Eby and his team decided on Socialtext's Signals, a microblogging tool that is accessed via a browser, mobile device or an Adobe AIR desktop application and is integrated with a wiki, social networking profiles and "activity streams" (which are similar to the Facebook News Feed).

Socialtext Partner Program Provides Strategic Deployment Practices for Social Software

CMS Wire, November 12, 2009

While enterprises continue to grab up various social software solutions for their internal environments, Socialtext, a provider of such solutions, is working to increase the business value of their offerings.

Designed to ensure partner success, their new Services Partner Program gathers participants that specialize in different strategic practices for deploying social software.

What Can You Do With Socialtext Desktop?

CMS Report, November 11, 2009

What can you do with Socialtext Desktop? Provide status updates. Ask questions, get answers. Share information. Keep current on what everyone is doing, and stay informed when content is updated. Find people, connect with them, discover new people. Access content in Socialtext workspaces; wiki pages, files, blogs, and spreadsheets.

Creating Social Value in the Midmarket

Internet Evolution, November 9, 2009

The Enterprise 2.0 debate is over. It's time to stop thinking about using social media in the marketplace and instead realize it has value and needs to be a part of your midmarket company.

That's the message behind a whitepaper distributed last week by Socialtext, a Silicon Valley company that makes Web 2.0-based business software. The company is aiming to shift focus away from endless discussion about defining social media toward clear examples of how Enterprise 2.0 software can help companies grow.

Thirty years of spreadsheets: A new offering from Socialtext puts the venerable spreadsheet into context

IT World, October 21, 2009

“…you can pour a lot of information into a single cell of the spreadsheet, and turn them into very capable mathematical models or data collections.”

“…these can readily be shared across the Internet with your colleagues, and you can collaborate on them in real time…”

SocialCalc Comes Out of Beta, Marking 30th Anniversary of VisiCalc, the first Spreadsheet Technology

Read Write Enterprise, October 19, 2009

On this day 30 years ago, Dan Bricklin's VisiCalc spreadsheet program changed the way people thought about computers and how they applied to business.

Bricklin remains a leader in the field and on this anniversary date is seeing his SocialCalc technology come out of beta and become a fully developed product from Socialtext, the company he has collaborated with since 2006.

Spreadsheet's Creator Goes Back to the Future

Internet News, October 19, 2009

Dan Bricklin co-created VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet software. Now his new product, SocialCalc, is poised to make its debut. Bricklin calls SocialCalc the first distributed spreadsheet program because it's designed for collaboration.

"I used to get 10 e-mails a day from different people with these reports," said Dave Ball, Meredith's vice president of consumer marketing. "Now, with SocialCalc, I can go in at one point in the day and see what's going on in all our active campaigns right now. It helps us distribute information and knowledge faster, so we can react more quickly."

SocialText Takes Beta Tag Off SocialCalc, A Social Spreadsheet

CMSWire, October 19, 2009

Happy anniversary to the spreadsheet! That's right, thirty years ago today Dan Bricklin helped dream up and release VisiCalc, the world's original spreadsheet.

"SocialCalc is the next logical step for the spreadsheet. As we move into the social world, as typified by a wiki where there is one current copy that everyone can work from, the spreadsheet needs to move there, too." – Dan Bricklin

SocialCalc Could Help Wikis Grow Up

Information Week, October 7, 2009

The real significance of something like SocialCalc: It says to me that wikis are about to morph from an e-mail alternative (an adjunct, really) into a self-styled space where you can really do stuff.

Do Your Documents Manage You? - Greener Pastures Through a Wiki World

Baseline, September 4, 2009

As a senior executive in the renewable-energy industry, Brandon Stafford often tapped Wikipedia.org for both business and personal use. Then, more than two years ago, Stafford had a thought that changed the way his office did business: Why can’t our company collaborate like the wiki world does?

Socialtext Mobile: Business Activity Streams on the Go

Mashable, September 2009

If you’re one of the many enterprise (and increasingly, small business) users of Socialtext, you’ll be excited about today’s Socialtext Mobile beta launch news. If you’re in the market for an Enterprise 2.0 solution for your business, there’s even more reason to get Socialtext on your roadmap.

Starting out as primarily a wiki company back in 2002, Socialtext has grown to include a buffet of collaboration tools for the enterprise including blogging, microblogging, social spreadsheets, people profiles, activity streams, and a dashboard that pulls everything together in one view.

Socialtext Launches Mobile Version of Twitter-Like Collaboration Platform

TechCrunch, September 2009

Collaboration platform Socialtext is taking its package of enterprise 2.0 services to the smartphone. Via a Blackberry, iPhone or Android, users can see and post to their company’s Twitter-like message stream and access their company’s Socialtext Workspace, an enterprise-ready wiki. The platform’s SocialCalc collaborative spreadsheet offering is also accessible via the mobile interface.

Socialtext Lets You Collaborate on Your Smartphone

CMSWire, September 2009

Socialtext brings collaboration to your smartphone with Socialtext Mobile, allowing secure microblogging and staff communication on the go.

Socialtext Goes Mobile But Forgoes an App

ReadWriteWeb, September 2009

Enterprise collaboration company Socialtext has launched a mobile edition of its software suite, giving its customers better access to its activity streams, wikis, microblogging and more for the first time. Socialtext chose to create a mobile browser version that is cross-platform by default.

Socialtext Releases Mobile Web App for Blackberry, iPhone, Android

eWeek, September 2009

Socialtext Mobile Delivers Broader Access

InternetNews.com, September 2009

Socialtext Mobile, out today, offers similar functionality to the desktop version, including Twitter-like microblogging, Activity Streams and Workplaces for collaboration.

Users won't have to do any extra configuration to use the mobile version. Socialtext Mobile automatically detects when you log in from a mobile phone and serves up an optimized mobile application.

Socialtext Goes Mobile

CRM, September 2009

The company, perhaps best known for bringing Twitter-like status functionality to the enterprise, is now allowing customers to access its collaboration software via the Web on their smartphones.

Socialtext Adds Smartphone Compatibility With Socialtext Mobile

Web Worker Daily, September 2009

Socialtext, an innovative enterprise social network/collaboration app that we’ve covered previously, has just launched Socialtext Mobile, which provides smartphone compatibility and lets you stay connected to your team even when you’re on the go.

The Power of Information: OSIsoft uses Socialtext to revamp an outdated knowledge base

CRM Magazine, August 2009

“We wanted to share knowledge and be able to answer support cases more rapidly,” says Don Smith, VP of Customer Support.

Relying on the intelligence of his support crew – most of whom have degrees in engineering or an engineering discipline – Smith decided to develop an internal wiki to make it easier to create content and get the best minds involved in making sure articles had the proper information.

Customer support agents can now access the knowledge right away, even if the articles are still in the process of being finished. The entire company can contribute, which means other departments can add their expertise to the living-and-breathing documents. The up-to-the-second change log also included in the Socialtext wiki enables all employees to see who is changing or altering which articles – allowing for company-wide transparency.

“I’ve been here almost 30 years now,” Smith says. “I’ve never seen any system picked up and adopted as quickly as this one.”

Socialtext's New Tool: Think of It as Private Twitter for Enterprises

CIO, July 14, 2009

New standalone Socialtext Signals product lets enterprise employees communicate in a real-time stream about projects, documents and other items. Think of it as Twitter for just your team. While the product is separate than Socialtext's flagship wiki, it will also include Socialtext People, which lets companies build their intranet using social networking profiles that employees maintain.

Because the product utilizes RESTful APIs (representational state transfer application programming interfaces), which essentially means it plays nicely with all kinds of software, the actions people take in other applications become automatically broadcasted as a short message (microblog post). So if you integrated it with your document management system, for example, employees would get messages that say, "Chris just edited his newest article."

Many companies have begun experimenting with microblogging in the enterprise to this end. Back in May, not long after Socialtext launched Signals, Davies, a public affairs firm, rolled it out internally to help its employees communicate more efficiently.

"We've been using it as a way to vastly increase efficiency while cutting down on e-mail," Lisa Bertero Palmer, senior vice president of Davies, told CIO.com at the time. "People will share pieces of knowledge or key actions they've taken throughout the day."

Socialtext Embraces Twitter Craze with Microblogging Appliance

eWeek, July 14, 2009

Socialtext breaks out its Signals microblogging tool and People social networking utility into a separate appliance, allowing IT admins to deploy messaging and collaboration tools safely behind their corporate firewalls. The move comes as the popularity of Twitter and Facebook pushes companies to offer secure social software as enterprise applications for employees.

The move is a potential salve for corporate IT administrators wrestling with security concerns over employees using public-facing Web services, which admins can't moderate in the workplace. Moreover, most privately hosted tools don't let IT control membership, content or company policy.

Enterprises may also opt to integrate the applications within the appliance with their LDAP or Active Directory directories to enable single sign-on with other intranet apps and populate profiles.

Socialtext offers enterprise microblogging in a box

CNET News, July 14, 2009

As a follow-up to its free, 50-user microblogging product, Socialtext is launching a new paid service for large to enterprise-sized companies that lets them run the Twitter-like service behind the firewall, and with many more users.

Companies that want it can pay $1 per user, per month, alongside a monthly fee that pays for Socialtext's server appliance. This hardware runs the microblogging software locally.

The appliance can be connected to local staff directories and pull in employee information to create user accounts that have profile information including phone numbers and e-mail address already filled out. Anytime local directory changes are made, this information gets updated in Socialtext too. Administrative control is also not limited to IT staff, since certain users can be graced with admin privileges of their own that let them moderate both user content and the users themselves.

Companies will still be able to use Socialtext's free 50-user version of the service that lives in the cloud, but this option gives larger companies a bigger user cap and more control over the data.

New Socialtext Microblogging Appliance Signals Increased Flexibility

ZDNet, July 14, 2009

The new Socialtext Microblogging Appliance provides security plus IT control in a cost-constrained package. It gives IT the option of quickly deploying secure microblogging and social networking company-wide, thus providing a viable alternative to ad hoc usage of other tools on the public internet.

Signals is enjoying significant success, and this move of offering an inexpensive appliance solution to a pressing IT security problem is a smart one: it may well help the same harassed IT people to see the value this brings to their enterprise and facilitate adoption of the broader Socialtext product line for greater productivity gains.

Enterprise Software Looks to Ease IT Management

InternetNews.com, July 14, 2009

Enterprise Web 2.0 provider Socialtext today announced an appliance designed to make it easier to deploy social networking and microblogging software in the enterprise.

Socialtext New Tool: Like a Private Twitter for Enterprises

InfoWorld, July 14, 2009

Today Socialtext, a Palo Alto-based social software company, released Socialtext Signals as an appliance product that will let companies have an internal, Twitter-like activity stream inside their companies, allowing employees to update each other on the status of projects, documents and other work-related actions.

Industry followers believe this scenario will cut down on excessive e-mail as people gain an "ambient awareness" of their colleagues' actions, rather than having to message them for individual updates.

Neatest technology at Enterprise 2.0

FierceContentManagement, June 25,2009

“The Socialtext Social Spreadsheet, called SocialCalc, which was created for the company by spreadsheet pioneer, Dan Bricklin, was especially cool. The tool provides an online collaboration-style workspace in the form of a spreadsheet. You can link to pages within a sheet or to wiki pages and you can learn about the people who have created the data and the pages.”

Socialtext Brings Enterprise-Level Software to the Masses

Web Worker Daily, June 23,2009

“I’m hoping we can strengthen our virtual team with this rich suite of communications and collaboration tools.”

Socialtext Offers Free Hosted Social Networking, Social Spreadsheet

CMS Wire, June 23,2009

SocialCalc is a spreadsheet program that is integrated in the Socialtext social software platform. It offers the ability to link data from other spreadsheets and workspace pages. Because it is integrated with the Socialtext platform, it becomes a great collaboration tool for data.

You can publish the spreadsheet to the workspace where everyone can make their appropriate changes and an audit trial can tell you who changed what and when. Or you can allow everyone to maintain their own spreadsheet with their data. You then interlink the spreadsheets. As they update their data, your spreadsheet gets automatically updated.

30 Years After VisiCalc, Socialtext Unveils SocialCalc & Freemium Pricing

ReadWriteWeb, June 23,2009

Created in collaboration with VisiCalc co-creator Dan Bricklin… SocialCalc is more than just an online spreadsheet that a group can edit. It truly incorporates the design principles of wiki in to a spreadsheet for distributed teams; dynamic editing, wiki-style linking, and an easily accessible version history are all there.

SocialCalc can also integrate Socialtext "workspace" wiki pages in to spreadsheets and individual cells (and vice-versa), creating easy portability of data between the different knowledge mediums within the platform.

Socialtext Goes Freemium With Socialtext Free 50

TechCrunch, June 23,2009

Socialtext offers a compelling package of Enterprise 2.0 services, but it has a problem. While it can talk all it wants about how great its products are, the real selling point is getting customers to use them for themselves. While free-trials work somewhat, the time constraints are limiting. So that’s why Socialtext is moving into the freemium market with its new Socialtext Free 50 offering.

Socialtext Goes Freemium With Socialtext Free 50

CIO, June 22,2009

Socialtext started in 2001, specializing in enterprise wiki technology. It has employed a similar innovation strategy to keep ahead of Redmond. Over time, Socialtext followed the consumer market and developed new social features on top of its product. It added social networking profiles that allowed companies to build their corporate intranet with a Facebook-like design. Most recently, it launched Socialtext Signals, a technology that creates an internal Twitter-like experience for the enterprise, where employees share their actions with colleagues.

Eugene Lee: CEO Socialtext on integration, Twitter and predictions

ZDNet, May 19,2009

“…it makes sense to consider these tools as an integrated whole… you can derive benefit from related technologies under a common platform.”

Bringing the Twitter-like Experience to the Enterprise

CIO, May 15,2009

Learning from the success people have had on Twitter, the short messaging service, a public affairs firm has begun using enterprise microblogging technology from Socialtext. It mirrors the Twitter experience, but for the purposes of internal, enterprise collaboration.

"We've been using it as a way to vastly increase efficiency while cutting down on e-mail," said Lisa Bertero Palmer, senior vice president. "People will share pieces of knowledge or key actions they've taken throughout the day."

The Need to Know Relevant Information Now

CMS Wire, May 14,2009

It’s about building a smarter workforce where individuals are engaged, trusted, and enabled to find out exactly what they need to know.

Secure Tweets: Three Business Apps Rated

eWeek Europe, May 13,2009

Socialcast, Socialtext and Huddle; three services offering the features of Twitter, Facebook and other Web 2.0 technologies but palatable to business.

New Services Provide Twitter, Facebook Capabilities for the Enterprise

eWeek, May 11,2009

"Socialtext is no stranger to taking cutting-edge Web technologies and converting them for enterprise use. The company has been around for several years, and was known for building enterprise wikis, but over time has been regularly adding other new Web technologies."

How to Collaborate More Efficiently: Tackling That Mountain of E-Mail

eWeek, May 8,2009

Five tactics to decrease e-mail volume by 30 percent.

Messaging & Collaboration Slideshow: Socialtext Enterprise Social Net Ably Leverages Web 2.0 Capabilities

eWeek, May 8,2009

"Socialtext takes nearly all of the most-talked-about features of Web 2.0 and social networking-including Twitter-style microblogging, traditional blogging and collaborative wikis-and combines them into a SAAS offering that is designed to make these tools attractive for business use."

TransUnion Finds Cost Savings, Seeks More

Internet Evolution, March 21,2009

Can’t put an ROI on social networking? TransUnion CTO John Parkinson has his: an estimated $2.5 million in savings in less than five months while spending about $50,000 on a social networking platform. The Socialtext platform has profiles, a wiki capability, and micro- messaging. Perhaps most powerfully, employees can use it to ask questions of a broad group.

Bringing the Twitter-like Experience to the Enterprise

CIO, March 13, 2009

Read about how Socialtext customer Davies Public Affairs is using Socialtext Signals to help their employee communication.

"There's a lot of standalone Twitter clones out there," says Ross Mayfield, Socialtext Chairman and Co-Founder. "The difference is we’ve brought an integrated experience across social collaboration tools."

Socialtext Signals: Yamwitter-Like Enterprise Microblogging

CMS Wire, March 13, 2009

"Anyone who suffers from e-mail overload will appreciate the type of contextual information Socialtext Signals offers."

One on One with Ross Mayfield of Socialtext

Fierce Content Management, March 11, 2009

Today companies seek to build social Intranets, social extranets and/or social media. Social Intranets increase employee engagement so the organization moves faster. Social extranets make partners more effective and foster customer intimacy, with private sharing and collaboration towards common goals. Social Media is public facing use of social software, which either takes form of engaging with existing web communities or creating your own.

Socialtext Collaboration Platform Gains Micro-blogging

PC World, March 3, 2009

Like blogging, wikis, RSS feeds and social networking, microblogging is the latest Web 2.0 technology that has found its way to workplaces, expanding the options that employees have for communicating and cooperating.

“Microblogging promotes spontaneous communication that requires little effort, complementing more formal tools like blogs, shared documents, wikis and e-mail. By offering employees a microblogging tool, internal communication and collaboration is increased, to the benefit of the entire company.”

"Each communication and collaboration tool demands a different degree of effort and attention. Writing a Signals entry is a small gesture, but together with everyone else's gestures, you get a collective view of what's going on, which is important for companies that want to execute better."

—Sam Aparicio, Socialtext customer Angel.com

Socialtext’s New Features Help Build Tighter Teams

Web Worker Daily, March 3, 2009

Internal social networking with integrated tools like this can be really useful in building a tighter team, especially when many of the team members don’t know anything about each other, so Socialtext is on my “web app wish list.”

Socialtext Joins Corporate Twitter Trend

Information Week, March 3, 2009

Socialtext Signals is but one piece of the company's larger Socialtext Dashboard, a personalized home page for its core wiki product that includes recent changes to the corporate wiki, RSS feeds, a tag cloud, and OpenSocial widgets. Since Socialtext Signals is integrated into other Socialtext software, whenever an employee saves a wiki page or a blog post, that information can be sent out as a message to colleagues following that employee. The integrated model gives employees access to far richer information about their colleagues than something as limited as Twitter does.

Socialtext Adds Twitter-like “Signals” And a Desktop AIR App

Tech Crunch, March 3, 2009

Socialtext Signals is essentially an enterprise version of Twitter. Employees within a company can micro-message each other without competitors or the rest of the world snooping.

Any time someone changes a page that you’ve created or edited in the past, it shows up as an activity. So constant updates from Ralph in engineering about the progress of a project serve as a reminder for everyone else to do their part as well. Each update serves as a prompt to follow up on a project or keep it moving along, while Signals can also serve as the new watercooler.

Socialtext Brings Status Updates to the Enterprise

Mashable, The Social Media Guide, March 3, 2009

Within the enterprise environment, the benefit of this type of application is largely that it cuts down on email clutter, as users can share links, ask questions, and find the person they are looking for using microblogging. Frankly, Socialtext’s approach makes a lot more sense than some of what we’ve seen so far in the “Twitter for business” market. By connecting status updates with a broader suite of business applications and activity streams, it would seem to make connecting the right people and information easier.

To add to the experience, the company is also releasing an Adobe AIR client that lets you view status updates in real-time and filter them into different groups.

Socialtext introduces Signals and gets my green light

The Social Networker, March 3, 2009

By integrating the existing capability seamlessly with Signals, Socialtext skips much of the building phase and brings the reality of enterprise microblogging immediately into the platform.

Socialtext unveils Twitter-style product for business

Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal, March 3, 2009

Socialtext Signals lets employees micro-message each other like Twitter users do but without letting competitors or anbody else in the outside world read their posts. It appears both as a widget and on a standalone Socialtext Desktop application built using Adobe AIR technology.

Socialtext Brings Web 2.0 to Your Company

PC Magazine, January 28, 2009

“What if your corporate intranet could be more useful: say, encouraging employees to collaborate and work together on projects and documents, and facilitating communication among functional groups and offices in multiple locations? Socialtext, a collaboration platform that can complement or replace your corporate intranet, can do just that.”

Social Networking Vendor Pays It Forward to Unemployed Techies

CIO, January 16, 2009

"Former employees from struggling internet giant Yahoo! as well as Divx, which makes online video players, are both starting alumni networks with the Socialtext software.”

Web 2.0: Hot technology for 2009

Network World, January 5, 2009

"Socialtext 3.0 provides social networking, wikis and customizable home pages for the enterprise. "