What social networking vendors offer, for businesses…

The social networking scene has taken the web by storm as Blogger, Wikipedia, Facebook, MySpace and countless others expand peoples’ reach way beyond their physical community to realms that span across cyberspace.

It so easy.

People create a profile and voilà !

They’re set to share content, ideas and opinions.

Social networking, especially for those who know their way around, is insanely cool. It’s no surprise that so many organizations are looking to setup their own, internally. Once a business social network is up and running, if it’s done right, employees and managers can connect among themselves with ease.

One theory, with regards to business social networks, is that good ideas get validated and bad ideas get discarded more quickly, which leads to faster product development — but it’s just a theory.

In general, companies will benefit, in various ways, from the content that’s being created, shared, added upon and archived for later use.

Any company can make social networking yield benefits but like most new things, it would be foolish to attempt to qualify its financial bottomline usefulness with hard metrics. For the time being, it’s more a matter of getting in early than trying to catch up, later on.

So assuming you’re ready to launch your internal social network, which solution should you choose? Well, that’s for the IT guys to decide but to get the ball rolling, consider the following vendors…

• Drupal
  • Open source.
  • Great at community-driven sites.
  • Blogs and profiles.
• IBM Lotus Connections
  • Paid software.
  • Helps you execute tasks more quickly by using dynamic networks of coworkers, partners and customers
  • Blogs, profiles, social bookmarks, communities and more.
• Jive Software
  • Licensed software or hosted SaaS.
  • Integrates the “enterprise 2.0″ capabilities of collaboration software, community software and social networking software.
  • Wikis, blogs, profiles, social bookmarks, tags, discussions and more.
• MS-SharePoint
  • Paid server software, MS SaaS or hosted by 3rd parties.
  • In its own words: connecting people, process and information.
  • Wikis, blogs, profiles and communities.
• NewsGator
  • Paid software. Extends MS-SharePoint.
  • Empower employees, customers and partners to collaborate, communicate, and innovate in order to create business value through social computing.
  • SharePoint add-ons for tags, tag clouds, expert search, discussions and more.
• Scuttle
  • Open source.
  • Light on the more advanced features but does social bookmarking like it should.
  • Social bookmarking.
• Socialtext
  • Paid hosted service or on-location server appliance.
  • Used for all employees to get a collective view of what’s going on and share content.
  • Wikis, blogs, profiles, social bookmarks and microblogging.
• Telligent
  • Lease the software or buy perpetual licenses.
  • Designed for high-volume communities where performance and up-time are critical.
  • Wikis, blogs, profiles, groups and communities, social analytics and more.

And as you continue searching for vendors, expect to find lots of other worthwhile finds. Keep in mind that the big software firms are currently being swarmed by waves of smaller firms offering solid codesets and eye-pleasing visuals so expect the heated competition to go on, for a while.

In case you were just thinking about this…

Yes, open source has an advantage over most paid and hosted solutions: it’s free!

It’s also instantly available through a simple download and there’s no licensing fee, whatsoever. If you can make up for a little less “business-class support”, open source scripts will likely end up being your first and all-time best choice. Keep in mind open source projects evolve all the time and all those upcoming updates will also be… free. Which is nice.

And don’t forget that open source projects usually come with mountains of useful plug-ins which add bleeding edge features to your core script. Plus the fact you can dive right into your code and tweak just about anything you want. No encryption here.

But perhaps open source is not your thing.

If that’s your case, paid scripts (or software) or hosted solutions is where you’ll most likely end up as very few organizations develop their own social networking engine from scratch.

With such solutions, the deeper your pockets, the more features you’ll get.

And you’re not too picky, customizationwise, you’ll be up and running rather quickly. Software as a service (or “Saas”) is where many mid-sized companies like to do business because everything’s hosted externally. There can be some cost saving at first but as the content volume grows, it can inflate the rent to the point where it’s not that much of a deal anymore so watch out for that. Do your mathematical projections before you sign-up.

Paid software is generally hosted in-house and it’s generally yours for life but remember that the upgrades might cost you a lot of dough, over and above all the other technical maintenance cost. Again, do your mathematical projections before rearranging your server room to accomodate a business social networking software solution.

If you still feel anxious about deploying a social network in your enterprise, seek help from the vendors themselves or from local IT firms which specialize in web 2.0 stuff.

All in all, if your organization is still unsure about wether it’s worth it to have an internal social network, consider that employees will get access to blogs, wikis and tools that let them communicate, collaborate and share information.

The real bottom-line question might be, how much is it worth, to your enterprise, to have its employees using applications it controls and manages? Once that question is answered, everything else aligns itself accordingly.

Tags: social networking, social networks, internal networks, company social network, enterprise, business, social networking vendors, ibm, lotus, jive, sharepoint, saas, hosted solutions, paid software, .net, microsoft, blogs, wikis, search, information, connect, share, content, server

Business social networking done right

There’s a lot of talk about the value of adding social networking to the communications strategy, in countless organizations who see the benefits but fear the downsides.

While there’s little doubt getting employees communicating with each other will help bring teamwork to a whole new level, allowing everybody the opportunity to contribute the organization’s success through blogs, wikis and such might generate some initial confusion.

The following five (5) best practices tips will help you ensure your business social networking project gets done right.

1. Test the waters
   • People in the business world are asking themselves why they can’t have their very own Blogger, Wikipedia and Facebook, internally.
   • If a company doesn’t take it upon itself to offer such tools, employees will find a way to do it themselves, through open source solutions or otherwise.
   • Companies can try social networking with a low cost (or no cost) pilot, namely using open source scripts which are widely available. Hosted applications can also help.
2. Set modest expectations
   • To get a project off the ground, don’t try to oversell it. Don’t promise executives that enterprise social networking will unleash, ignite or synergize anything.
   • Pitch the project as a pilot. That’s very important. Insist on the option to walk away after a few quarters if it doesn’t work as expected.
   • Describe one or two business improvements you think are achievable.
   • Make sure to set reasonable goals in regards to user adoption and increase your odds for success by seeding an initial deployment among the teams who appear most eager to use these tools.
   • Try to find a way to measure business value.
   • Hard numbers might not be expected from a pilot -but- management will want to know the payback, down the line.
3. Don’t let fear stangle growth
   • Some businesses are wary about letting their employees voice out, out of fear that they’ll say improper things. There’s also a fear that the “social” part will spin out of control.
   • Even if you’re tempted to vigorously police employee-generaed content, resist that urge! It would have a chilling effect on participation and could tank the entire project.
   • First and foremost, it’s a human thing. Employees need time to grow comfortable with speaking up, sharing ideas and participating in company-wide conversations.
   • A social networking project will likely wither before it even has a chance of growing if people fear the throught police (don’t make “1984″, all over again).
4. Resist exclusivity
   • Gated communities are what they are, gated. Don’t let that happen within your social network. That approach defeats the purpose of social networking.
   • It’s a natural reflex to want all the named groups to be locked down but that will kill teamwork, team spirit and the social aspect of it all.
   • Exposing discussions to a broader community has —a lot— of value. Never underestimate this.
5. Don’t forget about search
   • Search underpins the value of social networking platforms. Poor searching (or indexing) tools make social networking less useful.
   • As you look for social networking solutions, ask the vendors about their search capabilities. At first, it’s not very important but as content builds up, it becomes essential.
   • Make sure the search feature allows for user-generated feedback such as tags and content-rating systems (it sometimes comes through the addition of plug-ins, and thats ok).
   • A good search feature helps prevent your social networking platform from becoming another silo, so if possible, consider federated search. As such, your internal search engine should be able to index content in other systems, query 3rd party search engines and pull results from other information repositories.

Regarding search, you could also allow for external engines to query your internal indexes and content but given that we’re dealing with business social networks, that might only be a good idea for a few companies.

Business social networks are all about offering the state of the art in online networking inside the company so employees don’t have to venture outside for such features as blogging and wikis.

Furthermore, many companies are still clueless on how to transfer knowledge between more experienced workers and those who will (some day) replace them. Social networks can help with this by creating easily accessible archives of work-related content which, in time, might prove quite valuable.

Many businesses also use social networking for recruitment purposes. Internal promotion can be simplified and external recruitment of fresh talent can surely benefit from internal referrals. Human resources people usually have good words for internal social networks because, among other things, it empowers them with a powerful communications tool that all employees are likely to use.

It’s pretty clear that your own deployment will be customized to fit your own needs but overall, setting up a business social network will never let management indifferent.

So, go ahead and fire up your own enterprise social network. You’ll quickly see just how wise “your crowd” really is.

Tags: business social networking, social networks, socially, employees, employers, companies, enterprises, social nets, blogger, facebook, linkedin, twitter, wikipedia, blogs, wikis, archives, information archives, user adoption, networking, community, search engine

Social networking in business

Networking isn’t new.

Social networking is the online equivalent of a offline meeting where, among other things, geography and schedules wouldn’t matter. Now, that’s a weird concept for some C-level dinosaurs but for the tech-savvy managers moving up, it makes perfect sense.

At the very foundation of networking, there are two things: humans and communications.

In a business setting, a basic goal would be for ideas to be clearly communicated, among all “humans”, in the organization. A more advanced goal would be for those ideas to mature and turn into “value”, one way or another.

Blogs and wikis haven’t replaced email messages and chatting but they’ve definitely added shared spaces where project data (and ideas) can more easily pollinate, more often than not, in ways that were largely unpredictable. Putting the information “out there”, for an entire team (or company) to see is a powerful way to leverage teamwork.

Social networking for businesses see communities of interest spring up around subject matters rather than organizational hierarchies. If you’ve been in business for a while, you’re well aware that the best ideas don’t necessarily come from the “top brass”. Networking at all levels of a company smashes the invisible glass walls which have the bad habit of strangling innovation, big time.

Generally speaking, social applications provide business value by letting people add context to information stores which, in turn, helps others identify what’s useful to them — it also makes search results that much more relevant.

Social bookmarks are a nice example of this since team members can share the web resources they like and learn from others about web destinations that have been overlooked. After a while, the bookmark list becomes a real time saver.

Naturally, enterprise social networking helps people find and connect with co-workers through user profiles, expert search and social graphs that map out any employee’s connections throughout the organization. This, in and of itself, makes for a strong argument for social networking, in the modern workplace.

Finding co-workers with domain-specific knowledge, in just a few clicks, can really propel any organization to a whole new level of communications, productivity, teamwork and of course, profitability.

Some organizations are obsessed with the “dangers of wasting time” wrongly associated with social networking. But that’s very bad management since social networking is a communications enabler and as such, it’s built to help channel information to the right people, wherever the people may be in the organizational chart.

If you’re just starting out in the social networking for business “adventure”, make sure to take a look at the quality open source scripts that are available to structure your data into blogs, forums, wikis or just about any other way you wish.

Tags: social networking, enterprise, business, work, workplace, colleagues, co-workers, employees, team members, managers, c-level, executives, decisions, ideas, communications, information, organization, open source, blogs, wikis

Developmentwise, mobile phones specs are all over the map!

Mobile phone users are happy to report they’re getting more productive “on the road” than ever before with their snappy mobile gear.

Many mobile workers seem like they’ve been teleported from another galaxy to those who haven’t yet embraced the mobile revolution. With their handheld phone, they can message their colleagues, adjust invoices, browse inventory levels and launch a search on Google.

But any mobile worker will confirm this to you, not all cell phones are created equal.

And because mobile gear comes in some many variations, developers are having a hard time keeping up with it all.

So, what’s it like coding for the mobile crowd?

Well, it’s not exactly a piece of cake and in five (5) easy to understand points, here’s why…

1. Custom SDKs
   1. The sheer effort it takes for one to become proficient in a target platform’s nuances leaves little time to learn the other platforms.
   2. With Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia, Palm, Windows Mobile and others promoting unique software dev kits, a handful of mobile developers have any significant knowledge or experience with any two.
2. Platform frangmentation
   1. Flashback almost 30 years back, in the 80′s, when PC-related development was booming. Well, this time around, it’s all about mobile computing.
   2. Coders who craft their applications to fit the lowest possible denominator, mobilitywise, will not satisfy high-end smartphone users who’ll rapidly switch to native platform application alternatives if they feel like the “one size fits all” doesn’t fit them.
3. Security
   • Bringing security to mobile gear is a specialty unto itself.
   • Malware writers are having a ball abusing poorly written code which sometimes has so little security built-in that it’s just calling for abusers to tap into it.
   • Developers must be vigilant about the code they write but until that’s well understood by all developers, companies must be prepared to move quickly with a fix when a vulnerability is identified.
4. Unpredictable operating conditions
   • Phones take on so many forms that coding for all of them at once is downright impossible.
   • From being handled roughly on construction sites to sitting nicely on a VP’s charging craddle all day, no phone will be used in the same environment so that too becomes a challenge.
   • As such, developers must test their applications across broad platforms and external factors.
5. Variable screen resolutions
   • Forget “design once, publish anywhere” because mobile phones are more like armored silos than easily connecting puzzle pieces.
   • With a dizzying array of mobile devices with varying dimensions, resolutions and color depths, designing a single web user interface is (and will continue to be) a serious challenge.

As you can see, those who develop code for the mobile world have quite a few hoops to jump through before they can shine but hey, hundreds of millions of mobile phone users make for an incredibly attractive market to cater to and that’s most probably why so many talented coders are drawn to that specific growth market.

Search, maps, videos, email, calendars, chatting and contact management are just the start, as far as mobile phones go. It’s like the PC boom all over again, but for mobile phones!

And in all of this crazy mobile development rush, it’s important to remind yourself that mobile phones can also be used to phone home, once in a while.

Tags: mobile phones, mobile development, mobile software, mobile code, mobile security, mobility, cell phones, mobile gear, hard to develop for mobile devices, various phones, variety of specs, coders

Blazingly fast computer nanotech chips being tested at the MIT

Are you currently shopping for a new 2.4 GHz personal computer?

Do you feel it would be better to pony up a little more money to buy up a 2.8 GHz chip, instead of the cheaper (but slightly slower) 2.4 GHz?

Situations like these happen each day in computer stores around the world and yet, research funded by the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology and by the Interconnect Focus Center program, which is also being followed both in the federal government and by private-sector chip companies could radically change the shopping metrics consumers are used to.

How would you feel about a 500 GHz or even a 1,000 GHz computer processor?

That’s right, 250 to 500 times faster than today’s “state of the art” computer chips.

These new chips (or nano-chips, if you prefer) are made of a one-atom-thick lattice of pure carbon (or graphene) and use only a single transistor. This awesome technology could be commercialized in a year or two but it’s important to say that these are experimental chips.

Basically, MIT’s chip is capable of multiplying electrical signal frequencies in a way that may let it boost the clock speed to insanely fast ranges, like 500 GHz to 1,000 GHz. It’s a new application for graphene: a full-wave signal rectification and frequency doubling.

Technically speaking, given the extremely high electron mobility in graphene ($>$100,000 cm$^{2}$/Vs at room-temperature), such ambipolar devices have the potential to operate at very high frequencies and allow the fabrication of new THz sources and sensors, as well as high speed transmitters and receivers.

So that’s probably going to define our next computer processor speed jump to levels which will foster a whole new way to seamlessly operate with blazingly fast tech devices.

Business intelligence, advanced robotics, holographic computing and even artificial intelligence are all bound to benefit from such powerful computer chips which will convey data faster than ever before.

So, are you excited about buying your next computer, say, in two years?

Tags: 500 GHz, 1000 GHz, computer chips, nanochips, nano, nanotehnology, nanotech, nanospeed, carbon, lattice, one atom, graphene, single transistor, mit, experimental chip, signal frequencies, computers, processor speed, fast chips

Novell picks up on Just enough operating system

Let’s start by taking care of the semantics where “Just enough operating system” is generally referred to as “JeOS” or “Juice”, for the really wired crowd.

Yes, JeOS is pronounced “Juice”, like in the juice you drink.

So what’s JeOS, anyway?

Glad you asked, it refers to a customized OS that precisely fits the needs of a particular application. Huh? Simply said, it’s the opposite of a bloated, one-size-fits-all operating system. It’s a base OS with (or without) specific pieces of it, like a MySQL engine, for instance.

JeOS is all about optimization, speed and lightweightedness.

In this age of information, data can explode and setting up lightweight server appliances can ease administration, lower the latency times (associated with queries) and reduce the risk with operating such an appliance.

If you only install the part of the OS that you need (for a specific server appliance), you’re likely to build up a the fastest possible server for a given task (for that level of computing power). So who’s picking up on the JeOS craze? It’s basically a Linux thing with Ubuntu leading the way, VMWare integrating it in its virtual machine matrix and for the very companies, Novell which is adding its weight to the JeOS scene.

In fact, Novell’s new SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 adds capability for policy-driven systems management and, on top of that, it’ll soon be certified to run on Amazon EC2 and as more coders are jumping in the cloud, daily, that’s clearly a smart move.

But that’s not all since, later this year, Novell plans to release tools that let a company (or developer) build a virtual appliance using only the parts of SUSE Linux needed to run an application, stripping out the rest to create that contextually ideal lightweight package.

Of course, Novell hopes the JeOS moniker sticks and more companies adopt this “building block approach” to operating systems management.

Tags: novell, jeos, juice, ubuntu, server, server appliance, os, operating system, virtual appliance, suse linux, linux, enterprise, systems management, amazon ec2, cloud computing, lightweight os, vmware, server edition jeos, just enough os

Google’s own definition of AdSense

For online advertisers, AdSense is a huge network through which they can sell themlselves, their products and their services. For web publishers, it’s a revenue stream but what about Google, what’s their take on the service?

Over the years, a large number of AdSense publishers have wondered what words Google would use to properly define the “publisher side” of its all important pay-per-click advertising system (comprising other elements, namely AdWords where advertisers purchase the ads [that are later shown through AdSense]).

If you’ve been wondering about that too, here’s how Google defines AdSense, in its 2008 annual report, on page 56:

AdSense for content is our online service for distributing ads from our advertisers that are relevant to content on our Google Network members’ web sites. Under this program, we use automated technology to analyze the meaning of the content on the web page and serve relevant ads based on the meaning of such content. For example, a web page on an automotive blog that contains an entry about vintage cars might display ads for vintage car parts or vintage car shows. These ads are displayed in spaces that our AdSense for content partners have set aside on their web sites. AdSense for content allows a variety of ad types to be shown, including text ads, image ads, Google Video Ads, link units (which are sets of clickable links to topic pages related to page content), themed units (which are regular text ads with graphic treatments that change seasonally and by geography) and gadget ads (which are customized —mini-sites— that run as ads on AdSense publisher web sites).

For our online AdSense program, our advertisers pay us a fee each time a user clicks on one of our advertisers’ ads displayed on our Google Network members’ web sites or, for those advertisers who choose our cost-per-impression pricing, as their ads are displayed. To date, we have paid most of these advertiser fees to our Google Network members, and we expect to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. We recognize these advertiser fees as revenue and the portion of the advertiser fee we pay to our Google Network members as traffic acquisition costs under cost of revenues. In some cases, we guarantee our Google Network members minimum revenue share payments based on their achieving defined performance terms, such as number of search queries or advertisements displayed. Google Network members do not pay any fees associated with the use of our AdSense program on their web sites.

Our agreements with Google Network members consist largely of uniform online —click-wrap— agreements that members enter into by interacting with our registration web sites. The standard agreements have no stated term and are terminable at will. Agreements with our larger members are individually negotiated. Both the standard agreements and the negotiated agreements contain provisions requiring us to share with the Google Network member most of the advertiser fees generated by users clicking on ads on the Google Network member’s web site or, for advertisers who choose our cost-per-impression pricing, as the ads are displayed on the Google Network member’s web site.

Whoever wrote this, at Google, did a very good job at explaining AdSense… in just three paragraphs!

If similarly-sized businesses, like IBM, Cisco or Microsoft had attempted to define such an important business operation as this one is such a short linespan, chances are they would’ve failed, filling page after page to eventually “get to the point”.

This AdSense definition, published in the annual report and reprinted here, follows the exact same logic as Google’s search home page. “Easy does it” seems to be the general rule of thumb behind what AdSense is and seeks to be. In itself, this is wonderful news for all the smaller web publishers out there because it means Google doesn’t intend to overly formalize its ad network, like some competitors have.

Take APT, Yahoo!’s unified digital advertising platform.

It’s probably good but you likely need millions of visitors per day to get any level of attention from them to be —considered— for their ad program. Which is basically out of reach for over 99% of the web publishers out there. So all these fine web enthusiasts flock to Google’s AdSense where such insane “barriers to entry” simply don’t exist.

Talking about Yahoo!’s ad network, one has to wonder why they insist on being so elitist about who gets to show their ads. Is it because Yahoo! hate smaller publishers? Are they convinced only “they” know how to deliver content, and value? It’s anybody’s guess why Yahoo!’s “external publisher base” is so severely skimmed to keep only astronomically huge publishers while slamming the door in the face of all others.

Oh! Well, it’s their problem, not Google’s.

For those who like to read annual reports (even if the very idea of it might seem odd, at first), Google’s 2008 review of its activities, amidst the economic downturn that has started to be felt at the end of that year, proves that Larry and Sergei still steer this search giant with agility and grace.

Tens of thousands of people stand behind Google’s success but even though the valuation of the company has skyrocketed in the last decade, the people at the top have kept cool about it.

And it’s probably why any web publisher with sound content (i.e.: unique, useful and valuable) and a legitimate desire to generate revenue can apply to Google’s AdSense and reasonably expect to be accepted.

If you’re looking for a true sense of entrepreneurial spirit, online, look no further that Google AdSense… even in these hopefully episodic times of economic crisis.

Tags: google, adsense, adwords, definition of adsense, what is adsense, why adsense, how does adsense work, adsense publishers, ppc, pay-per-click, online ads, ad network, advertising, contextual ads, yahoo, apt, online publishers, money, revenue, online revenu, content monetization

AdSense’s low eCPM for web publishers

This financial crisis isn’t good for Google, its AdWords advertisers and its AdSense publishers.

While Google’s 2008 annual report shows a dip in the pay-per-clic advertising revenue model, the situation hasn’t improved since the beginning of 2009. In fact, the eCPM levels many publishers are seeing are hitting what appear to be record lows.

What probably hurts the most is the roller-coaster effect, of sort, between the “banner year-like” revenues of 2008 and the abysmal counterpart, in 2009.

AdSense is still the most lucrative PPC ad program online but countless publishers can’t make ends meet anymore. One publisher saw eCPM metrics shrink threefold. In real life, it’s the difference between making some $75 a day (in 2008) and some $25 a day (in 2009).

While many publishers had quit their day job to build high-quality web destinations, financed through AdSense, in 2007 and 2008, this year’s revenue slide has convinced most to get back on the job market and basically forget (for a while, at least) about their newfound lifestyle, as work-at-home web publishers.

But the more creative web publishers continue to derive enough money from AdSense to hold on tight during these generally harsh financial times.

Here’s what’s being done by some web publishers to “stay in the AdSense game”…

1. Cater to niche markets (namely to the debt consolidation and troubled assets niches);
2. Bank on the social networking trend (including “spin marketing” in Facebook groups);
3. Reduce the number of AdSense “ad zones” to show only the most lucrative ads;
4. Redesign the looks and add new features to existing web destinations;
5. Find a way to get more visitors in order to make up for the lost revenues (with the “original” visitor count).

Let’s hope that you’ll get creative too and basically endure the current market downturn. This will likely put you in an enviable position when the market goes back up, again. Assuming that it will. Of course.

So, is it possible to survive even though AdSense’s eCPM levels appear to be lower than ever? Probably, yes. But it’s not going to be a joyride. This time around, AdSense publishers won’t be laughing all the way to bank, like so many were, in 2008, the year AdSense really shined — for Google, the advertisers and the publishers alike.

Mathematically speaking, known and [publicly] unkown factors affect AdSense’s eCPM.

Rather weird situations seem to have wildly unpredictable effects on this particular metric but suffice it to say that for a large group of AdSense publishers, it hasn’t been as good in 2009 as it’s been before.

Given Google’s inherent creativity and leadership, one can safely assume that this particular “revenue decline” issue is being dealt with quite seriously at the search king’s headquartiers, in Mountain View, CA.

In the meantime, web publishers are welcome to get creative in order to beat this financial crisis and prove, once again, that AdSense’s online advertising continues to be a huge bargain, even for cash-strapped advertisers.

Tags: google, adsense, adwords, ecpm, ppc, pay-per-click, ads, advertising, online ads, publicity, web ad zones, adsense publishers, adwords advertisers, revenue down, overall revenue, revenue generation, work-at-home, web publishers, web publishing