Too often companies begin their journey to build an online community or professional network, work through the strategy to create a fantastic plan, talk to their users, refine a straw model for a feature set and then *thud* are hit with the reality that there are more community and social networking tools than they can count. The vendor landscape for consumer communities is pretty well known, but for enterprise… there is a lack of coverage and guidance. Companies struggle with the question of how to begin the search? Where should they look? Who is out there? Who is using which vendor for what?
Here are some of the more established vendors in the professional networking and online community space that have products that are especially created to serve enterprise:
Awareness Networks helps companies build and operate branded Web 2.0 communities. These online communities let customers, prospects, employees, or partners connect with each other and share content. At the core of the Awareness solution is an on-demand social media platform that combines the full range of Web 2.0 technologies—blogs, wikis, discussion groups, social networking, podcasts, RSS, tagging, photos, videos, mapping, etc.—with security, control, and content moderation. Awareness builds these features into complete communities for companies, or customers use the Awareness API and widgets to integrate Web 2.0 technologies into their own web properties. Major corporations such as McDonald’s, Kodak, the New York Times, Northwestern Mutual, and Procter and Gamble use Awareness to build brand loyalty, generate revenue, drive new forms of marketing, improve collaboration, encourage knowledge-sharing, and build a “corporate memory.” Founded: 2005 (Brief synopsis from web site)
Contact Information
880 Winter Street, Suite 300Waltham, MA 024511 866 487 5623
Community Server by Telligent is the proven enterprise social platform of choice. Trusted by Microsoft, Dell, MySpace and Intel (just to name a few), our proven social software powers some of the largest and most demanding online communities in the world. Community Server is built on Microsoft .NET 2.0 technology. (Brief synopsis from web site)
Contact information
17950 Preston Road Suite 310
972.407.0688
ELAvate by Neighbor hood America is the latest version of Neighborhood America’s enterprise social networking platform. The ELAvate trademark is significant in that it represents the company’s tagline, “Engage. Listen. Act.” But more importantly, it describes a growing need by organizations that are demanding value from customer engagement to “elevate” business outcomes. ELAvate is already earning industry accolades, having recently been named a Codie Award finalist for ‘Best Social Networking Solution’ by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA). The Codie Awards honor achievement and vision in software, education technology and digital content. (Excerpted from a press release)
Contact Information2210 Vanderbilt Beach RoadNaples, FL 34109239.513.0092
If you have a blog on the Web or have contributed to a wiki, you probably already know about Socialtext, as the company’s software is widely used in blogs and wikis. More and more people are writing and reading blogs, short for Web logs and a form of online journal, and corporate enterprises are turning to the “blogosphere” for new forms of marketing and communications. The company was founded in 2002. (from Hoovers)
Contact information
655 High StreetPalo AltoCalifornia 94301
1 650-323-0800
Mzinga provides on-demand solutions that leverage the power of workplace and customer communities for growth and innovation. We provide fully hosted, Software-as-a-Service solutions that provide you with the following benefits: Foster informal communication and dialog with your community; Enable your community members to interact, collaborate, and innovate; Facilitate knowledge sharing and employee training and development in the form of both formal learning (through our KnowledgePlanet Learning Suite) and social learning (through our Web 2.0 technologies) (Excerpted from Web site)
Contact Information
154 Middlesex TurnpikeBurlington, MA 01803
Phone: 1888.MZINGA.8 Thank you for reading Building Online Communities for Business by Leader Networks. We are a research and strategy consulting company that helps organizations succeed in social business and B2B online community building.
Visit us on the web at https://www.leadernetworks.com. Connect with us on Twitter http://twitter.com/vdimauro Call us at 617 484 0778
