by Bill Ives
May 6, 2010 at 3:23 am
· Filed under Web 2.0
I have covered NewsGator here before (see NewsGator Offers Social Sites ™: A Comprehensive Enterprise Social Networking Suite). I have been a fan of NewsGator for some time as they were my first RSS reader in early 2004 (see Finally, I’m Scanning the Web through NewsGator). I recently spoke with Brian Kellner, VP of Product Management to catch up on their latest moves.
We started with the iPhone offering. NewsGator is offering a native social iPhone client for Social Sites on SharePoint. They have wisely taken a subset of the Social Sites features, picking the ones most likely to be used through a smart phone. The features center around a sophisticated microblogging suite to provide a focused activity stream that goes across applications. The idea is to provide a central place to receive updates of all types, comment, and pass them on.
Brian recently wrote about this concept in a blog post, “The Trojan Horse Battle for Your Event Store.” He writes that, “in only a few years, a central event store will be a standard part of nearly all enterprises, and that architectural decision currently is being made indirectly at many organizations.” I certainly agree with this and have written related posts on several occasions. He goes on to write that, “microblogging seems to be achieving its greatest value in the context of broader activity streams that serve as a kind of nervous system for the company.” This broader role for microblogging, as it becomes more widespread within enterprises, represents a great opportunity for both users and vendors. NewsGator has recognized this and is offering an application to provide the unifying activity stream or “event store.”
The latest NewsGator application for the iPhone is a large step in this direction. You can attach updates to an object or a link. You can attach an update to a context such as an event or a project, and you can react to updates from others, maintaining the context. To support these three capabilities, mobile users can use an iPhone to send status updates, videos and photos to Social Sites for distribution. They can comment on and “like” updates they value and see notifications when others comment on or like their updates. Below you can see an example of the iPhone interface.
Participation in community discussions is also enabled and users can target a question to a person or group. They see the updates that are radiating to others, view updates from a specific colleague or community, and look up contact information for colleagues. Below you can see comments on an activity. They can begin threaded discussions to maintain the context.
They are now planning a BlackBerry version to extend their smart phone coverage. The initial iPad client will contain all the iPhone features. NewsGator is also exploring what additional capabilities, such as content creation, should be added to the iPad client.
The enhanced microblogging features are also part of the desktop version of Social Sites 3.1 that is fully integrated with SharePoint. This SharePoint integration provides enhanced security and leverages existing SharePoint features such as the user profile, reducing redundant requirements. Below is an example of a Social Sites workspace within SharePoint. The iPhone version provides the functionality shown in the central column, while the web version offers the broader content in the three columns.
You can also have Social Sites as a desktop client independent of SharePoint and within your desktop as shown below. In addition, you can work with Social Sites through email notifications and replies. You can also get activity digests through email and respond back still within email.
We next turned to the enhanced analytics that Social Sites now offers. The activity stream sets up a rich opportunity for analytics around the conversations and knowledge work within the enterprise. I think this is one of the major benefits of operating within an Enterprise 2.0 environment. NewsGator has recognized this and has done some nice work with data visualization. For example, you can get a tag cloud (as shown below) of the top 100 themes within the activity stream.
Clicking on any of these terms brings you to the instances of their use. You can also see the top ten experts on each term (as shown below). The person closest to the term in the middle is the most active. Several factors such as content authored, ideas generated, and tag usage weighs into the expertise scoring. You can see specific contributions for each expert in the right column.
This allows you to quickly see who is saying what to whom and stay better attuned to the pulse of the organization. There are a number of other creative visualizations. For example, you can drill down into the actions of an individual in the chart above.
The enhancements to NewsGator demonstrate some of the exciting business possibilities that are arising as the consumer Web 2.0 tools get greater usage within the enterprise. I look forward to seeing more.
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29 Tweets
mristeff wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 9:56 am
NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc @BillIves #newsgator
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc #newsgator #e20 #mobile
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
iDiggU wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 10:36 am
RT @newsgator: NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc #newsgator #e20 #mobile
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
ngtodd wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 10:38 am
RT @newsgator: NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc #newsgator #e20 #mobile
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
nice summary from @BillIves on @NewsGator’s updates // “More Mobile, Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics” / http://bit.ly/dbZX14 / #e20
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
RT @GeorgeDearing @BillIves on @NewsGator’s updates // “More Mobile, Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics” / http://bit.ly/dbZX14 / #e20
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
bfeld wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 10:49 am
RT @newsgator: NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc #newsgator #e20 #mobile
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Screenshots of my NewsGator iPhone app and the Silverlight webpart I wrote as well in this article http://digg.com/u1VBdc
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
RT @bfeld: RT @newsgator: NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc #newsgator #e20 …
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
chrisech wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
RT @newsgator: NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc #newsgator #e20 #mobile
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
bkellner wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Nice work @nick_harris > Screenshots of my NewsGator iPhone app and the Silverlight webpart I wrote http://digg.com/u1VBdc
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
mbierly wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
nice overview and short review of the new directions in the #NewsGator product http://bit.ly/dxso6O still a powerful story in 2010
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
RT @mbierly: nice overview and short review of the new directions in the #NewsGator product http://bit.ly/dxso6O still a powerful story …
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
RT @mbierly: nice overview and short review of the new directions in the #NewsGator product http://bit.ly/dxso6O still a powerful story …
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
RT @mbierly nice overview and short review of new direction in #NewsGator product http://bit.ly/dxso6O still a powerful story in SP2010
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
chrisech wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
RT @mbierly: nice overview and short review of the new directions in the #NewsGator product http://bit.ly/dxso6O still a powerful story …
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
#NewsGator gets more mobile and ramps up Activity Streams and analytics http://bit.ly/8Zc4Tc
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
BillIves wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
post on @theappgap NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
iDiggU wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
RT @billives: post on @theappgap NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
hopenic wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
RT @billives: post on @theappgap NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Herkens wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Wow, a Facebook like mobile app for SharePoint: http://digg.com/u1VBdc via @BillIves #e20 #iphone
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
tamccann wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
RT @newsgator: NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc #newsgator #e20 #mobile
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
jholston wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
RT @BillIves: post on @theappgap NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
lpytura wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
@mbierly: nice overview & short review of the new directions in the #NewsGator product http://bit.ly/dxso6O still a powerful story in 2010
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
jimworth wrote @ May 6th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc #yam
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
RT @BillIves: post on @theappgap NewsGator Gets More Mobile and Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics http://digg.com/u1VBdc
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Namics wrote @ May 17th, 2010 at 9:29 am
RT @Herkens: Wow, a Facebook like mobile app for SharePoint: http://digg.com/u1VBdc via @BillIves #e20 #iphone
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Oho, #Newsgator und #SharePoint sind doch nicht ganz ohne. http://ht.ly/1M1YS Jetzt auch mobil.
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
RT @Herkens: Wow, a Facebook like mobile app for #SharePoint: http://digg.com/u1VBdc via @BillIves #e20 #iphone
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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