Twitter Clones Will Be A Common Feature of Collaboration Platforms …

March 4, 2009 at 12:29 am · Filed under Collaboration, Communities, Distributed Work, Enterprise 2.0, KM, Web 2.0, Web Apps

.. and an essential tool in turning flows of information into useful and applicable knowledge.

This would not be the first time I (and many others) have said this, but here’s a new post on the TechCrunch blog that strongly reinforces that prediction.

People have been using IM in the workplace for quite a while.  But the one-to-many-many-to-one capability offered by Twitter (and Yammer, and other platforms that already have Twitter clones as part of their feature repertoire) is tailor made for effective ongoing communications for project teams, value webs comprised of vendors, suppliers, clients, etc.)

We’ll see a lot more of it … the online version of popping your head around the cubicle or walking over to the next department to talk to someone for a quick update and running into other interesting people and information on the way.  Happens all the time.

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Socialtext Adds Twitter-like “Signals” And a Desktop AIR App
Erick Schonfeld

March 3, 2009

In yet another sign that this will be the year of the activity stream, Socialtext is adding a Twitter-like message stream to its enterprise wiki/workspace service, The new feature is called Socialtext Signals, and it appears both as a widget in the Socialtext dashboard and as a standalone desktop app built on Adobe AIR.

Socialtext Signals is essentially an enterprise version of Twitter, much like Yammer. Employees within a company can micro-message each other without competitors or the rest of the world snooping. They will see only the messages of the co-workers they are following. In addition to the 140-character messaging between co-workers (the “signals”), there is also an “activity” tab. This generates a micro-message every time a person you are following takes an action inside Socialtext, such as creating a wiki page, writing a blog post, or making a comment.

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Two Webinars for the Coghead Community

March 2, 2009 at 1:57 pm · Filed under QuickBase, Sponsored Post, Web Apps, Webinar

As Bill Ives mentioned in his previous post, the QuickBase team has put together a special offer for Coghead ‘refugees’ left in the lurch after Coghead and SAP decided to shut the existing service down. We think, of course, that QuickBase is the best online database out there, and can solve the needs of both Coghead customers and Coghead partners.

I know moving to a new solution is a tough process. To help with the transition, we are going to host two webinars focused on giving partners and customers the information they need to make the best decision for their business.

For Partners – we are doing a webinar on Tuesday March 3d, 2009 at 10am (PST)

For Customers – we are doing a webinar on Thursday March 5th, 2009 at 10am (PST)

For more information, and to sign up for the webinars, please check out our blog post  – http://quickbase.intuit.com/blog/2009/02/26/quickbase-to-present-to-coghead-community/

QuickBase

Which Categories of SaaS Are Most Popular?

February 24, 2009 at 9:27 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0, Web Apps

Gartner, the Research firm, conducted a survey about usage of SaaS (software as a service). It confirmed what many of you already know or suspect: that usage of SaaS is growing. Nearly 90% of organizations expect to maintain or grow their usage of SaaS.

But what I wanted to know was this: what types of software services are companies using? That’s why I found this chart to be particularly helpful, because it shows the categories of SaaS services being used:

The top usage is accounting software (which appears to be used largely by small businesses).  That category is closely followed by sales applications and email applications.  

Interestingly, Web conferencing services did not rank as highly as I expected, falling near the bottom. I would have expected them to be among the more utilized services, especially among enterprises and midsize businesses that need to collaborate.

What the survey suggests is that there is plenty of room for more growth of SaaS, especially among the lower-ranking categories.

You can download a copy of the full Gartner report here.

Magnolia Goes “Poof” – Could That Happen to One of Your Free Apps?

February 22, 2009 at 10:23 pm · Filed under Web Apps

Ma.gnolia, the bookmarking service, suffered a corrupted MySQL database (which also corrupted its backup) and the service is no more.

Larry Halff, the founder speaks frankly in the video below giving a behind-the-scenes look into how Ma.gnolia was run.  As he points out, it may have seemed as if there was a sizeable company behind the site, but during most of the history of the service it was just one person — him.  He calls it a “labor of love” and described how he bankrolled it all.

 http://www.vimeo.com/3205188

Citizen Garden Episode 11: Whither Ma.gnolia? from Larry Halff on Vimeo.
 

Chris Messina, who interviews Larry, says starting at minute 19:15 what you will no doubt be thinking as you watch the video:  that you don’t know what kind of backup and infrastructure and IT practices are being employed in other Web services.

It’s food for thought.  Consider where and with whom to entrust your business data from your small business.

Shareable Databases: Intuit QuickBase Bringing Desktop Database Users into Enterprise 2.0

February 17, 2009 at 11:37 am · Filed under Communities, Enterprise 2.0, KM, Shareable Databases, Web 2.0, Web Apps

This post is the first in a series we’ll be running over the coming weeks on “shareable databases.”

I have written about QuickBase on this blog before (most recently see – QuickBase’s New Developer Program: Going the Next Step to Support Its Developers and Their Mutual Clients) and as you know they are the sponsor of The AppGap. QuickBase is an Enterprise 2.0 shareable database that lets you select ready-made online workgroup applications or templates designed to solve common business problems, customize them to suit individual processes, and share within a team or an enterprise. I recently had a chance to talk with Peter Fearey and Liz McCann, who wanted to update me on QuickBase since we last spoke, about some of their latest initiatives, as well as their progress over 2008. Peter began with some of Intuit’s moves across the product line.

Brad Smith CEO at Intuit, has set a focus on “connected services.” There is both an increase in cloud offerings to enhance connectivity and an increased connectivity between desktop applications and web services. In addition, Intuit is promoting ways for customers to be connected with each other as well as the many experts within the broader Intuit community. This provides greater access to professional services for Intuit users by Intuit users.

Within QuickBase they are building on this broader theme by reaching out to users of siloed desktop databases and spreadsheets to bring them into the increased connectivity that the QuickBase SaaS platform provides. Last year they did a user survey that indicated their happiest and most supportive users were ones who migrated from desktop databases and spreadsheets to QuickBase. Liz mentioned one non-profit that kept track of their events on a desktop database hosted on a single laptop. This laptop was hand carried to events. When there were two or more events on the same night the extra sessions were covered through pen and paper. Then the notes were added to the laptop later. The multi-channel access that a hosted solution, such as QuickBase, offers eliminated this bottleneck.

Here is a more extensive example reported earlier on this blog, Out of this Galaxy – Delivering Premium Customer Service Has Never Been So Easy. For the first two years, they used Excel to manage their customer information. It didn’t scale and Luke nearly lost his mind trying to keep track of it all. Since January 2008 they have been using QuickBase for their customer service management needs – tracking customer status, their inventory status and location, what product they carry, as well as other associated activities like in-store demo schedules and staffing. Recently Galaxy has moved their Purchase Order management to the QuickBase platform. They also have a solution that can scale to their rapid growth projections.

Encouraged by the survey results, QuickBase has gone after more desktop database users to bring them into Enterprise 2.0. They focused their product to meet both the needs of individual users, project teams, IT, and senior management. Most enterprises have thousands of critical databases siloed on individual computers, out of sight from IT and senior management, and difficult for team members to share efficiently. With QuickBase now everyone who needs to have access can see what is happening in thousands of operations critical to the business. With this enterprise strategy, QuickBase has seen significant growth both in the number and size of accounts. Like Galaxy Granola, and the famous potato chip commercial, once you try it, you cannot resist more. One client has 50,000 users. Here is a view of a workgroup administration screen. You can see that multiple databases can be managed through one interface.

You can also easily manage users as shown below.

…and manage groups through a consistent interface.

The press has been receptive. PC Magazine named them as an Editors’ Choice. The review said that “QuickBase puts your company’s database applications online, so that anyone in your organization can get customized, secure Web access to anything from inventory to contact lists to product management.” This choice selection was literally the case as the editor says that the PC Magazine editors use QuickBase to keep track of previews, reviews, and other features.

I think QuickBase is an excellent example of how Enterprise 2.0 can open up the organization. The market has looked favorably on this group of applications. Like many others in this niche I have interviewed for AppGap, QuickBase has seen significant growth despite a down market. Companies are seeing this class of applications as a way to both cut costs and increase productivity.

As we have discussed, SaaS is an important component of this move to Enterprise 2.0 and IDC recently issued the report, Software as a Service Market Will Expand Rather than Contract Despite the Economic Crisis. They projected that by the end of 2009, 76% of U.S. organizations will use at least one SaaS-delivered application for business use. SaaS applications are also getting an increasing percentage of IT budgets. With experiences like those reported by QuickBase, I can see why this is happening.

The QuickBase Team Collaboration Blog is carrying more of these stories, as well as ways to get increased productivity from the application.

Stay tuned for more coverage of “shareable database” apps in the next month or two and feel free to write to us if your company’s offering should be included in this survey.

What is the Future of Web Applications?

February 11, 2009 at 9:16 am · Filed under Web 2.0, Web Apps

Appopedia, TheAppGaps’ searchable database of Web 2.0 product reviews points to literally hundreds of tools across an array of applications from analytics to business intelligence, content management, mindmapping, security, software testing, visualization, wikis and workflow and more.

Without a doubt there is no shortage of Web applications,  but what I’m interested in is where to from here?  My reason for asking is a workshop colleague Victoria Axelrod and I are convening at FOWA Miami February 23.

“How to build web apps for the emerging Enterprise market” is the title, however our focus is on the business and organizational dimensions essential for successful application development. 

As preparation for our FOWA Miami Workshop I’d appreciate hearing from TheAppGap readers about the Future of Web Apps.  Yesterday on CNBC venture capitalist Roger McNamee  observed:

 ”Web 2.0 didn’t develop during strong times & isn’t positioned for a downturn at all.”  “Literally hundreds were funded and the vast majority will cease to be economically viable companies.”

A slew of technology magazines cross my desk and I’m following the move to Cloud Computing, Software as a Service, Rich Internet Applications, growing Open Sourcing and Green Computing. (Can Information Week’s February 2 cover story “Why Windows Must Go Open Source” be believed?)

Are these the trends you see driving the Future of Web Apps or is there something else deserving attention?  And what’s your take on VC Roger McNamee’s predictions for the fall out in Web 2.0 businesses?

Thanks for taking a moment to add your insights.

Jenny Ambrozek

PS If you are attending FOWA Miami, over at the FOWA Facebook Group I’ve posted a number of guiding questions to understand the applications participants are bringing to the conference.

MindMeister, online mind mapping application

December 19, 2008 at 1:56 pm · Filed under Reviews, Web Apps

Mind mapping has become my default method of organizing my personal thoughts and planning business tasks. My preferred desktop application is Mindjet Mind Manager, and it serves me well, but I thought I’d check one of the more popular web-based equivalent – MindMeister.

[photopress:mindmeister.jpg,full,pp_image]

First impressions were good. I appreciated the working demo they placed right on their front page, so you can try it without the inconvenience of having to register. The site also has a short video demo/tutorial that explains most of what a would-be user needs to know. Once you’re ready to take the plunge, signing up is easy because the site allows using your existing Open ID accounts (Yahoo!, Wordpress, etc).

The AJAX-based user interface is well-thought out. It’s clean and intuitive – definitely simpler than Mindjet Mind Manager, without negatively affecting its usefulness. The map itself dominates the screen, flanked by menus on top, bottom, and a sidebar. As always, the mind map starts with a central idea that branches out in all directions in various levels, depending on how detailed you’d like to go (for more on mind mapping techniques, click here). Adding nodes to the chart is a cinch, and manipulating the mind map is just a matter of dragging items to their desired place.

The sidebar features the Navigator, which shows you exactly where you are on the map, gives you the ability to zoom in and out, to go to the center, or to switch between maps. It also has the controls for basic text formatting, as well as the icons which you can place beside each item on the map for added effect. Extras include provisions for notes, links, attachments, and tasks.

Real-time collaboration is possible, and can even work with Skype, if needed (I was not able to try this feature, though). Like most web apps, documents can be readily shared with others. Export options include .rtf, .pdf, .jpg, .gif, .png, .mm, .mmap, and .mind, the default MindMeister file format. Programmers can extend this application through the MindMeister API.

You can sign up on MindMeister for free, but the biggest drawback is that you’re only limited to storing 6 mind maps at a time. Paid accounts, meanwhile, start from $4/month, can host an unlimited number of maps, and enable working offline using Google Gears, among other benefits. Despite the limitations of the free account, MindMeister is a good way to start learning about mind mapping for the curious. I only wish there was a way to draw lines and basic shapes on the map, to connect nodes coming off separate branches. Other than that, I have no complaints about this solid mind mapping tool.