NewsGator, the
company making SharePoint social, today released two new important
Enterprise 2.0 tools: SharePoint’s first native social iPhone client and
social computing’s most sophisticated microblogging suite.
The iPhone client, and a companion client for the soon-to-be-released
iPad, provide on-the-road users with direct access to their enterprise
social computing environments without the need for a browser, an extra
layer of software that can complicate a work session. As a mobile client
for NewsGator Social
Sites, the social computing environment most deeply integrated into
the SharePoint collaboration platform, the iPhone client accesses all
the relevant updates from the user’s colleagues and communities.
For the first time, mobile users can use an iPhone to:
-- send status updates, videos and photos to Social Sites; -- comment on and "like" valuable updates; -- see notifications when others comment on or like your updates; -- participate in community discussions; -- target a question to a person or group; -- see the updates that you're radiating to others; -- view updates from a specific colleague or community; -- look up contact info for colleagues; -- and more.
NewsGator will release the native iPad client for Social Sites with
all of these capabilities when the new tablet device hits the market
this spring.
A more powerful brand of microblogging
Microblogging is more than just tweeting ideas into the ether in
hopes that someone benefits. That’s why NewsGator has fully integrated
microblogging into its comprehensive social computing environment.
Integrating personal status updates with automated streaming of
enterprise activities addresses the strong preference for microblogging in
context: By 2012, more than 50 percent of enterprises will use
activity streams that include microblogging, but stand-alone enterprise
microblogging will have less than 5 percent penetration, according to
the Gartner research firm.(1)
Unlike other products, Social Sites’ new microblogging suite includes
all of the following:
-- a "global conversation" page to see all status updates in the enterprise as they occur; -- ability to target messages to a person or community; -- community-specific update streams and conversation modules; -- e-mail status updates and notifications; -- hashtag support, enabling impromptu discussions through use of the "#" character; -- "like" buttons to easily indicate positive feedback; -- notification emails for likes and comments; -- ability to add a comment by replying to a notification email; -- standard and custom filtering of status updates and activities; -- photo and video attachments that can be viewed inline; and -- new APIs for consuming and publishing activity information.
"It’s not enough just to have mobile access or microblogging
– what really matters is how such tools integrate with your existing
work environment and processes," said Brian Kellner, vice president of
products for NewsGator. "We’ve learned the intricacies of productive
social computing through experience with more than two million paid
enterprise users and have brought that experience to bear in these new
features of Social Sites that integrate seamlessly with employees’
existing workflow and communication methods."
The new iPhone and microblogging features are part of Social Sites
3.1, available now.
