Mediaboss Marketing

The time has come to think seriously about enterprise social networking and consider its role within wider enterprise collaboration strategy, according to global analyst firm, Ovum.

In a new report- the global analyst firm says the enterprise social networking market is starting to mature and is moving from the introduction phase into the growth phase. Strategic acquisitions have already been made by start-ups and establish vendors alike.

Richard Edwards, Ovum analyst and author of the report, comments: "Ovums current assessment of the enterprise social networking market indicates that Jive and Yammer are the two vendors that organisations are most eager to compare and contrast, but other vendors are generating significant business and revenues from their offerings."

"Industry figures suggest IBM Connections brought in US$105.4m during 2011, and from this we believe the current value of the enterprise social networking market to be in excess of US$500m," Edwards says.

Enterprise social networking, from a market perspective, is well and truly in the adopter phase, with around 10 percent of organisations in established IT markets deploying solutions or subscribing to services. Mobile devices are increasingly being used to access the networks and this is extending the use case for such solutions to a broad audience.

Edwards notes: "As the business case for investment in enterprise social networking solutions has yet to be proven to business sceptics, some vendors are encouraging independent user adoption in the hope it will prove business value. Ovum believes that the business potential offered by enterprise social networking will only be unlocked when necessity dictates a business change."

Meanwhile, the enterprise collaborations technology landscape is awash with social software from a variety of different sources. Vendors offering pure-play enterprise social networking solutions are competing against established enterprise collaboration providers. On the other hand, vendors offering business automation social platforms are trying to gain traction in a market that is also assessing the merits of emerging offerings from companies specialising in enterprise applications.

"Merger and acquisition activity has increased markedly in the past few months, and this has led to new entrants appearing on the enterprise collaboration landscape. So, with a market potential of at least US$10bn, the enterprise social networking market is the new battleground for all enterprise collaboration vendors" concludes Edwards.

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Time for enterprise social networking is now - Ovum

01-10-2012 18:59 on-Profits use social networking to help domestic violence victims

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Non-Profits use social networking to help domestic violence victims - Video

America loves its Facebook. According to comScore, Inc., the social network had 158.01 million unique visitors in the U.S. in May 2012. Believe it or not, that represented a slight decline in the number of visitors. Despite its popularity, Facebook has some competitors out there, and they may just be stealing a bit of attention from the leader in social networking.

What if you want a social network that caters more to your specific interests? Facebook may be a great place to connect with friends on a more general level. But for athletes looking to connect with other athletes, or Game of Thrones fans looking for a network of compatriots they can discuss the latest episodes with, a more niche social network may be more up their alley. And some sites are finding success catering to smaller groups of people.

The list of social networks is ever-expanding, with a community for just about everyone, although the general interest social networks may never reach the ubiquity of Facebook. A February infographic from VentureBeat.com, for instance, says that the much-hyped Google+ has just 18 million unique visitors per month, less than the long-forgotten Myspace, and its visitors spend just 6 minutes per month on the site. Still, some less ambitious networks appear to be growing. Some analysts say these just might be a better place for companies to spend their ad dollars.

Ammon Brown, vice president of operations at the web-based media management platform TRAFFIQ, believes that, while the audience won't be on nearly the same scale, advertisers may find they get more value from ads placed on smaller, more niche social networks as the users are more likely to be there for a specific reason and may even be more open to engagement.

"It's nice to have those sorts of affinity-related communities, where you're there because other people with the same interest are still there," he says. And because these smaller, niche networks are more affinity-based, "people are going to be a little more open to discovery," Brown says, and, therefore, "advertisers are willing to pay more."

Of course, to attract advertisers, people first need to know about the network--which is something that may pose a bit of a problem for these up-and-coming networks that aren't exactly household names yet. That's why Brown says he feels the smaller, more niche social networks would be better served entering into an ad exchange.

Referencing the struggles of Google+, which he calls "a bit of a flop," Brown says, "If Google can't usurp Facebook as the next great social network, I don't think anyone can."

One just-launched social network that hopes to stick around is Chicisimo, which launched July 11. It describes itself as a "social website and worldwide community where fashionistas and fashion brands come together to share their personal style, inspire one another, and discover new styles, brands, and products." At Chicisimo, people can upload photos of their favorite outfits, provide and receive feedback from the community, and earn virtual "flower" awards, while interacting with their favorite fashion brands, the company says.

Chicisimo's co-founder, Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarra, says the site's target audience is "women interested in fashion." He says he doesn't feel his audience is being neglected by other social networking sites. Rather, he says, "It's just that social networking sites can't be everything to everyone. It would not make sense for a site to build functionalities, for example, for both fashion enthusiasts and music enthusiasts."

Nor is it expected. "You just don't want to go to Facebook for a fashion journey," he adds.

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Social Butterflies: Facebook's Biggest Competitors

VICTORIA, British Columbia, Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --If you want a beautiful birthday cake, you need to do more than just throw the ingredients into the oven. Social networks are like that don't expect more than some half-baked ideas and a pile-up of opinions.

But if you share the vision that the Internet can also be a meeting place where you can work with others to resolve important issues, you will want to check out the site e-Deliberation.com, which is officially launched Monday, Oct. 1, 2012.

e-Deliberation.com Inc. is a Canadian company with head offices in Victoria and secure servers in Montreal. Established in 2010 by Jean-Daniel Cusin, a serial entrepreneur, the mission of eDeliberation is to bring the Internet experience to the next step: enable people globally to mutually connect, deliberate and collaboratively resolve issues that concern them.

e-Deliberation online events come in two versions: Free (public) and Premium (private).

For instance, community groups anywhere in the world can use it for free to deliberate about and resolve an issue they are concerned about.

Private e-Deliberation events are normally retained by organizations who wish to keep the event and its outcomes private or confidential. For instance, a corporation with offices across the country or internationally can convene a strategy-making e-Deliberation event to flesh out its 3 year plan.

The outcome of an e-Deliberation event is a multi-vectored, integrated strategy that comprehensively deals with the issue or challenge that was the focus of the event. This creates a critical mass of persons biased to actually see the strategy succeed.

The e-Deliberation process can accommodate between 15 and up to 80 participants for a given event. These participants work as a whole group as well as in smaller teams, with multiple feedback loops to ensure that no significant idea gets dropped. The process uses a consent-based approach so participants minority views have a chance to be considered.

Mr. Cusin's vision for e-Deliberation is forward thinking - "The events of the past few years have highlighted that when governance systems, be they geo-political or corporate, are controlled by a very few people at the top who are expected to master everything, it's a disaster. The world is too complex for that. Too many knowledge domains, too many stakeholders, jurisdictions, potential impacts If we are to advance as a civilization, we need to leverage the Internet to solve big problems by assembling the right minds and helping them get the job done. That is what we are doing with e-Deliberation."

The e-Deliberation site (https://www.e-deliberation.com) is now accessible globally for people to register and to organize e-Deliberation events for their community of interest.

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Social Networking Is Dead; Long Live http://www.e-Deliberation.com!

Premium social networking site App.netfresh from beating its initial goal of 10,000 paying members by more than 10,000Monday announced changes to its pricing structure. The site hopes this move will grow App.net even more. App.net will now offer a monthly plan, and its $50 yearly membership has been cut by nearly a third.

With Mondays changes, the yearly fee is reduced to $36. Those that want to kick the tires on the service might be interested in App.nets new monthly plan, which sets you back $5 per month.

Now, paying for a social network seems to be a pretty radical idea in the Facebook era. However, App.net founder Dalton Caldwell believes that most social networking users are tired of the advertising that has taken over these types of site sites. In turn, he thinks that people will pay for a service free of ads. App.net was created based on this idea, has no advertising, and is fully member supported.

Users of Twitter might find the way App.net works familiar, as the social network's structure mimics the way the micro-blogging site worksusing hashtags, @ replies, and the like. Twitter users may be who App.net wants to target:Initial backers of App.net were invited to join the service and claim their Twitter username.

App.net appears to be a welcome change from the likes of Facebook and Twitter, both of which seem to have an insatiable desire to sell us just about anything and the desire to use our personal data to do it. At the same time, how many Internet users actually want to pay for something that we can get free just about everywhere else?

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Paid social network App.net updates pricing structure, adds monthly plan