NewsGator: Social Computing is the New 'Business Operating System'

Self-assembling Socialpedia and automated Knowledge Explorer in NewsGator Social Sites 3.0 mark tipping point for enterprise social computing

BOSTON, June 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Enterprise 2.0 2009 Conference -- NewsGator today introduced capabilities that affirm social computing as the new operating system for business - one that eclipses the bloated email inbox as the most productive home base for knowledge workers. What e-mail and the file folder system have done since the 1980s - serve as the de facto operating system for business - enterprise social computing delivers today, and does better, going forward.

Social Sites 3.0 is a significant upgrade to NewsGator's enterprise social computing platform, and to Enterprise 2.0 capabilities in general. Companies can sign up for beta access today to see how Social Sites transforms content, activity and social graphs into "Social Knowledge." NewsGator's Social Sites 3.0 release includes two breakthrough capabilities to organize valuable content and leverage reputation in large organizations:

• Socialpedia - This self-assembling Wikipedia-style internal Web site is a one-stop source of knowledge generated in topic-based online communities throughout the global organization. Socialpedia leverages an improved Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 wiki experience within Social Sites communities to create a single knowledge repository with distributed ownership. A new hire can find terminology to get productive fast. A sales representative can brush up on an arcane product feature to help close the deal. HR can explain complicated concepts just once for all to see.

• Knowledge Explorer - Expertise maps, which take advantage of the rich media features in Microsoft Silverlight, provide an interactive graphical snapshot of the professionals in an organization that are most informed on a selected topic. When users click on a topic in a tag cloud, the map appears with experts arranged according to their automatically calculated expertise ratings. Need an internal expert to talk to a prospect on dual-flange inverted widgets? Click on the "widgets" tag and find her. Looking for the missing link in the potential miracle drug you're developing? Discover your overseas counterpart and get it done. The CEO needs a few slides now on New Zealand go-to-market strategy? Find the guy who knows it backwards and forwards.

These new capabilities will be included as standard features in Social Sites Enterprise which is becoming the default starting point for productivity-minded knowledge workers in large businesses.

"Emerging capabilities take aim at two powerful approaches to enterprise social interaction: the 'broad and thin' and the 'narrow and deep,' " said Gartner Research Director Nikos Drakos. "Breadth is needed to foster connections among every user and community in the organization, and depth is needed to capture all the salient content produced by each individual user and community. A collaboration strategy and social computing suite should include both of these approaches to social knowledge."

Beyond e-mail

Despite the growing capabilities of social computing, some knowledge workers are still hamstrung by e-mail. "Who doesn't get frustrated with their in-box: messages pouring in faster than you can read them, disparate subjects filling the same bucket, and tortuous threads that drift off topic?" said Brian Kellner, NewsGator's vice president of products. " 'Collaboration' around email too often translates into just scheduling conference calls to figure out where the content is, who the experts are, and what they need to do. Social Sites 3.0, on the other hand, assembles content, organizes people, ranks experts, and fosters connections among everyone so you execute rather than plan. Isn't this a better way to work? Isn't it time for social computing to be the standard operating system for business?"

Enhancing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Social Sites 3.0 extends the capabilities of the Office SharePoint Server content management and collaboration platform by providing a Facebook-like social computing experience. It presents users with carefully selected content, connects them to important colleagues and involves them in productive communities.

"Social Sites 3.0 helps customers take their business-class social computing to the next level by presenting users with just the right content and connections at just the right time through Microsoft Office SharePoint Server - the industry's most powerful enterprise social computing platform," said Kathleen Winder, Microsoft's Director of SharePoint and FAST Partners. "Social Sites is a very compelling complement to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server that promises to change the way business gets done."

To be considered for the Social Sites 3.0 beta program, email socialsites@newsgator.com.

About NewsGator Technologies, Inc.

NewsGator Technologies helps enterprises and media companies leverage social computing solutions to deliver real business value. The company's enterprise social networking and widget services are in use by hundreds of the world's most recognized brands, including Biogen Idec, CBS, CNN, Discovery, National Geographic, Procter & Gamble and USA Today. NewsGator Social Sites and Enterprise Server give enterprises better ways to collaborate, share content, expand employee knowledge and improve productivity. NewsGator's Widget Services and iPhone applications enable media and brand companies to better engage their audiences and extend the value of their brands through viral syndication of content. NewsGator also offers free, award-winning RSS aggregators for the Web, desktop, mobile devices and e-mail clients. For more information, visit www.newsgator.com.

See NewsGator in Booth #505 at the Enterprise 2.0 2009 Conference

SOURCE NewsGator Technologies, Inc.

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