Here's another word to add to your lexicon: "Socialprise." It's meaning is somewhat obvious: social tools + enterprise = "socialprise." It's a new term, but one we hope sticks around, since it's currently representative of one of the biggest shifts in business today. We covered some socialprise tools before, in discussing Worklight, Google Sites, and HiveLive, but here's a new avenue for social tools in the workplace: Social CRM. A company called InsideView is bringing the social web to CRM, and they're not the only one to do so.
Dealmaker Media may have put together its best annual Under the Radar conference yet. This Thursday in Mountain View, California, more than 30 selected startups will show their wares and some world class technology speakers will offer their perspectives on the state of the industry. It's not cheap to attend UTR, but RWW readers can get a $100 discount by following this link.
Those of us unable to attend should be able to see some of the highlights live via Robert Scoble's cellphone and the streaming video service Qik. Speakers include the WSJ's Kara Swisher, NYT's Brad Stone and Amazon CTO Werner Vogels. Presenting companies, which both Richard MacManus and I helped select, include:
Semantic search engine hakia is announcing today, at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York, that it is licensing its proprietary OntoSem technology to other companies. This will enable third parties to build semantic search applications. The first such customer to be made public is RiverGlass, Inc, a provider of real-time analytics. RiverGlass will integrate hakia's OntoSem technology into its analysis software.
Moconews posed an interesting question this morning: will wifi go the way of the public phone booth? Their premise was that public wifi (i.e., at conferences, or busy coffee shops) is often slow and hard to use, while mobile broadband is more reliable. Further, mobile broadband is spreading like wildfire and becoming more ubiquitous. As that happens, is wifi in danger of becoming no longer useful?
Venture Beat is reporting that cross-platform web Instant Messaging service Meebo is raising a substantial amount more money at a valuation of more than $200 million. Consensus among the community of VB readers seems to be that such a valuation is insane. Looking at the details about Meebo indicates otherwise, however. Meebo is a simple, solid service that serves a clear need and has amassed large user numbers.
Sarah Perez wrote today: "When Amazon introduced their e-book reader, the Kindle, Steve Jobs made a strong proclamation regarding the book industry that received a lot of attention: "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore [...]" As it turns out, he was only half-right. People read, even those in the younger generation, they just prefer to do it online." Backing that sentiment up was a comment by Sean Mulholland, who said that he's a good example of a digital native: "I hardly ever read books. Probably only about one or two a year, and even then they're typically non-fiction as opposed to 'literature'."
In the early days of the web, going online was heralded as a great way to connect with other people who have had experiences similar to your own. The web was a place to get answers, advice and community no longer limited by the geographic location of the individuals you connected with.
While all of that remains true today, the ubiquity of the internet, the ease of publishing and the rise of online advertising has lead to the emergence of new kinds of websites: productivity, how-to and advice/Q&A sites that broadcast, scale and monetize that kind of information.
Slideshare is growing and may even have become the leading pure play online presentations app [Update: Zoli Erdos points out in the comments that Slideshare doesn't allow you to create online presentations, only share them - which is a key point that I forgot to mention initially]. Two years ago I lamented the shortage of 'online powerpoint' services and noted that it was a product category "up for grabs" in the Web Office market. But now it is flourishing - Web Office leaders Google and Zoho both have good online slideshow offerings and there is no shortage of other startups doing it. But Slideshare is the service that is grabbing attention, perhaps due to its focus on sharing and community.
Leave it to Radiohead, the pioneering alt-rock band that released its latest album last fall under a pay-what-you-want price scheme to a lot of fan fare (and some criticism of gimmickry), to push the envelope further. The band is now asking fans to create their first music video for the album in a contest utilizing online YouTube of animation (and Crunchies finalist) Aniboom.
The six ideas that will be developed into web products at Social Innovation Camp, which convenes in London on April 4th-6th, were announced today. The unconference-style event, which is being sponsored by Yahoo! Developer Network Europe, NESTA, mediaguardian, The Young Foundation, CabinetOffice, and madgex, and includes Bebo-founder Paul Birch and Yahoo! lead developer Chris Heilmann on its advisory board, aims to bring developers together for 48 hours to solve a set of social problems.
