Posted by: Will Morgenweck
12/21/2011 3:43 PM
 December has been an exciting month for the social collaboration market. Jive Software went public, Telligent acquired Leverage Software and Facebook announced a new feature for Pages. What does this tell us about social media and what does it mean to DotNetNuke?
If you have attended any of my sessions related to social media you know that I like to start off by defining what “Social” really means. We have to realize that “social” is a hot buzz word right now, but it doesn’t just mean Facebook, Twitter or other popular social networks. Social refers to the way people relate and interact with each other. When we talk about social business or social collaboration we are referring to the features and benefits associated with improved user-to-user interactions. Of course, sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn showed us how this was all possible, but we are finally starting to see how these tools and methods can greatly improve the way we do business. Jive Software’s IPO this month was a great step in further proving the value of social business.
Just to be clear, I’m not a financial guru and there are plenty of articles about whether or not Jive is a good investment, but the fact that a software company that started with a forum product is now worth over $800 million is not only exciting, but also provides some insight as to how the social business market is shaping up. It becomes even more exciting when you compare what Jive Software offers with what we have in store for DotNetNuke in 2012.
Another company making news this month that also started as a forum product is Telligent. For those that might not be aware, Telligent started off with a product called Community Server that was originally an open source ASP.NET forum product. This week Telligent announced the acquisition of Leverage Software. Leverage Software provides an on-demand social solution. Hard to tell how this will actually play out for Telligent, but it does appear that they see the same opportunity that many others have noticed for cloud based offerings.
Facebook is also starting to realize that businesses need more than the standard social tools that they currently provide. This week they announced that business owners will soon be able to communicate with users through private messages. This will be a great way for companies to respond in a more direct manner to comments from users on their pages.
Social Collaboration is simply the next evolution of how we communicate and interact online. We’ve evolved from bulletin board systems to Usenet, from List Servers to Forums, member directories to social graphs. Blogs, Forums, Profiles, Groups, Galleries and Activity streams are becoming increasingly more common on everyday websites. Whether we like it or not, sites such as Facebook and YouTube have changed the way people browse and interact with websites. Which means you need a content management system that will not only meets the needs of your site and content admins, but also provides you with the tools that users have come to expect.
This has certainly been an exciting year for DotNetNuke, but 2012 is going to be even better. I will have another blog post after the holidays to share some of the details for the 2012 roadmap. In the meantime, I encourage you to watch the Shaun Walker’s DNN World keynote to catch a glimpse of what we have planned.
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