2 posts tagged “new product”

With all my talk in earlier blogs about the benefit of companies employing a social media strategy, I thought that it would be a good idea to review a product that enables companies to build their own social media empire.  Yesterday, I had the opportunity to see a demo of a great new product from Social Platform LLC: Social Platform Enterprise 1.2.  Just released last week, this product does what it says on the tin- it is a highly extensible, modular platform which allows enterprises to build a customized social media infrastructure – complete with integration into key social media sites like Blogger, Live Journal, WordPress, and soon, YouTube and Flickr.  The platform effectively allows companies to develop a social networking hub for their constituents.

Social Platform Enterprise is highly customizable and integrates well into existing systems.  Social Platform and their clients work together to tailor a solution to meet business goals – i.e.: identifying features, branding, integration points, etc.  With the current release of Social Platform Enterprise 1.2, the average implementation usually takes between 30-60 days and costs about $15,000 for a basic site. Clients typically pay about $1,500 month for hosting and services.  The resulting product is a unique, scalable, hosted, managed social media solution, which allows an organization’s constituency to interact with each other and the organization in a more meaningful way.  The code and presentation layer are separate, so clients can make edits, using almost any HTML editor.  In the future, President and CEO Eric Schlissel tells me that they’re planning to release an “Express” version of the platform in Q1 2007, which will be an out-of-the box solution for customers who are looking for a less customized solution that is easy to set up without consulting expertise.

One of the biggest selling features of this platform is the openness and its ability to integrate well with existing systems and popular social media sites.  The plug-in architecture and open API, combined with the fact that modular software updates are included in the cost of the product, mean that that the platform is scalable and can grow with an organization’s needs.  Plus, Google Analytics is incorporated so that clients can measure what levels of traction their social media efforts are producing.
 

There are several other key advantages of Social Platform Enterprise 1.2 including:

• The ability to integrate community, ratings, and rewards: create member profiles and member groups and conduct polls of specific groups of constituents. Offer rewards to members for their participation in forums or their evangelism on other websites.  The ability to allow for member rankings.
• The ability for members to communicate and collaborate. Clients have the option of integrating content management systems, wikis, member-to-member messaging, and target communication channels (which allow client to speak to members with a specific profile. E.g. a certain number of reward points)
• Security features are built in, and clients can decide which level of security they want for their social media sites. There are automatic security updates, a secure admin area, and the possibility for secure sign on for users.  Plus, because the resulting sites are hosted and managed by Social Platform, there is a private hardware and a private network

In the next rev of the product, Schlissel expects several improvements including:

• Payment Options for All System Features
• Ecommerce, Auctions, Classifieds
• Expansion of Web Services
• Integration of Third-Party Software
• VOIP, IM
• Widgets

To see the results of Social Platform in action, check out one of their first clients: Omotion.  If you’ve got any comments on Social Platform, please post a comment on this blog. The demo looks good, and I’m eager to hear feedback from others who have interacted with Social Platform generated social media sites.

*Note: I don't get paid to endorse products. I just review new social media products as I see them, when the opportunity arises.

Last week, San Francisco-based start-up Activeweave launched an exciting new product called Stickis.  At first glance, Stickis looks like any other web overlay and annotation tool (i.e. Google Notebook, Trailfire, Fleck, Diigo, etc.), but dig a little deeper and you’ll see that Stickis does more.  If it reaches critical mass, Stickis could revolutionize the way that people interact with the web and each other.  Unlike popular social networking sites like MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, LinkedIn, Cyworld, etc., which require users to interact with each other within the confines of a specific website, Stickis allows users to interact with people in their network anytime and anywhere on the web.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with web overlay, traditional annotation tools have been around for a while.  These tools are browser plug-ins that let you stick virtual Post-It-esque “notes” on websites.  One of the first and most notorious of these web overlay services was the now defunct “Third Voice,” which many likened to “web graffiti”.  One of the problems with Third Voice was that it lacked privacy features, which critics argued, exposed everyone with Third Voice’s plug-in to potentially lewd and libelous commentary. In 2001, reporting on the backlash to this criticism, Wired reported:

Third Voice couldn't generate enough advertising revenue to raise consumers' awareness of its free service, and it couldn't generate enough consumer awareness to raise the advertising revenue it needed to stay in business.

Web overlay/annotation tools have come a long way since the missteps of Third Voice.  Since then, the web has seen significant technological advances – especially in the areas of privacy management, web search/organizing content, and social networking.   Stickis incorporates several advanced features in these areas into a product that not only free but highly functional, innovative, and easy to use.

One thing that makes Stickis different than its competitors is the way that the service is structured.  Stickis is organized around “channels,” which are groups of Stickis notes published by a particular user.  Anyone can set up a channel – a private individual, a blogger, an organization, a website, or a company.  (Yelp and OpenTable San Francisco are two of the first companies  to have Stickis channels.)  Users can subscribe to new channels or unsubscribe from their existing channels at any time.  Similarly, “channel” owners control the privacy of their content and are able to ensure which of their Stickis notes are shared with which of their subscribers.

Here’s how Stickis works today:

• Register at Stickis.com.
•  Pick a nickname/ username
  
•  Enter your email address
•  Select the channels you’d like to subscribe to
•  If you'd like to publish a channel, pick a name (mine is Socialmedia.vox.com)
  
•  Set-up your privacy settings
• You choose whether you want to make your Stickis channel public or private.  If you decide to make your channel public, you have control over which of your subscribers can see specific posts.  You can organize your subscribers into groups- limiting which of your Stickis are seen by which of your subscribers.  This is done by creating what Stickis calls “antisocial tags” http://www.stickis.com/settings/tags/
• Upon signing up, a small plug-in is downloaded to your computer and installed when you re-start your browser.  This plug-in does NOT contain spy ware and can be turned on or off anytime with the touch of a button, which appears in your browser’s toolbar.
• When Stickis is “on”, anytime you go to new web page, a small, unobtrusive icon appears in the bottom right hand corner of your browser window.  This button displays the number of Stickis notes that your subscribed “channels” have written about that web page.
  

  Corner-button

• Unlike other annotation programs, Stickis notes are easily ignored if you don’t want to see them. 
• If you want to open the Stickis notes on a page, simply click on the button in the lower right side of your browser, and a “tray” containing a summary of each Stickis note appears (listed in reverse chronological order).

• To get a closer look at a specific Stickis note, click on its summary in the “tray” and voila- the entire Stickis note appears as an overlay over the page you’re on.
•  If you want to add to a Stickis note or reply to someone else’s Stickis note, just press the compose button on the “tray” or in your browser’s toolbar, and start writing.
  

  Compose
• You can drag or drop URLs, Pictures, Icons, etc. into your Stickis notes.You can add ‘tags’ to each of your Stickis notes, facilitating easy searching. Similarly, you can add ‘antisocial tags’ to specific posts to ensure that only certain people see those posts.
• You can also customize the look and feel of your Stickis notes so that they reflect your personal style.
•  You can set up alerts that notify you when:
• Your favorite channel posts a new Stickis note.  
• Someone writes a Stickis note on a topic that interests you (e.g. notification when specific ‘tags’ are used).
• To see step-by-step instructions of how to work with Stickis, click here.
  

It’s easy to imagine the different ways Stickis could be marketed…

• Individuals: Share your most / least favorite sites with your friends, family, the public, etc.
• Fans: Talk with fellow fans about all of the latest on-line gossip.  Meet friends who are going to up-coming shows.
• Bloggers: Enhance your reader’s experience by cross-referencing websites that you’ve commented on.
• Blog readers: See what your favorite bloggers are saying about the sites you’ve visited.
• Marketers/ PR people (for products, bands, actors, etc.): Stickis is a great way to engage with the users who want to hear from you.  Create your own channel and share exclusive information with your prospective and existing customers.  Host contests, on-line scavenger hunts, and more.
• Teachers: Create different channels for each of the classes that you teach.  Share relevant websites / on-line content with your students and encourage them to engage in discussions with each other about what they see on-line.
• Politicians:  Reach out to your constituents and tell them what you think about what’s happening on-line.  Engage your staff in a confidential discussion about how to address leaks, negative comments/ allegations that appear on the web.
  

Stickis has the potential to become a leading social networking tool.  To succeed in this capacity, it must continue to evolve.  Activeweave’s CEO, Marc Meyer, agrees:

Today we’re very much emphasizing the annotation features and the ability to discover stuff. In the near future, we’ll be improving  people’s ability to connect more closely to their communities.

To read my blog anywhere on the web, add this blog to your Stickis Network.

To read another review on Stickis, check out TechCrunch.