Gratis is Good: Socialcast Makes its SaaS Enterprise Platform Free

Written by Steven Walling / June 17, 2009 10:00 AM / 3 Comments

Socialcast, the enterprise communication and collaboration platform oft-compared to Friendfeed, is making its basic service completely free, with no limit on users and administration capabilities.

This news marks a tidal shift in strategy for the company, since previously only a 10-user version was free, and was $1 per user per month after that. As of today, however, Socialcast will divest itself of subscriptions altogether, making a clean break with the model that competitors Present.ly and Yammer have long used.

Real-Time and on Your Desktop

The new release of Socialcast didn't just get a new business model. It's well on its way to becoming a comprehensive and fully-collaborative stream of information for the enterprise, one that goes far beyond mere microblogging.

Perhaps most exciting is that Socialcast's stream is now real-time, with only a quarter-second latency in posting. This means that workers can now stay easily updated on the diverse information sources they can follow through the platform.

Also new for the free version are the ability to claim administration rights such as user management and basic site customization, and an Adobe AIR desktop application.

How Free is Free?

Backed by True Ventures and with Om Malik on its Board, Socialcast will now primarily drive a revenue stream based on a behind-the-firewall version that adds enhanced security and accompanying professional services.

CEO, Tim Young, told ReadWriteWeb that with the cost per user rapidly approaching zero, SaaS is the certain future for platforms like Socialcast. But there will certainly be large government and enterprise customers who require self-hosting and consulting services.

What this means for you is that Socialcast can offer a free, on-demand service without holding back nearly all the enhanced features in order to entice you to pay a monthly fee.

What This Means for Socialcast

While Socialcast generally lives up to the hype of being more Friendfeed and less Twitter, there's no doubt that many potentially interested companies defaulted to microblogging services like Yammer and Present.ly which had a more graded array of freemium packages to ease in to.

But now, the tables seem to have turned. By offering up all but a handful of features for free, Socialcast's new plan may stack-up much better.

Comments

Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteEnterprise posts

Very interesting. By opening up their product for free and offering a collaborative microblogging environment for enterprises potentially an organisation could be dragged kicking and screaming into the age of social networking - considering that a single employee in the mailroom could start the usage of this platform in an organisation.

Now I wonder whether corporates decide to embrace the site or just prevent their employees from using it...

Posted by: Damon Oehlman | June 17, 2009 7:30 PM

"cost per user rapidly approaching zero"

I think this is a pretty interesting point - one that RWW should turn into an article of itself. I'd say for 90% of SaaS apps, this is fast becoming a reality. We're going to get to a point where it's just user perception that allows for price differentiation based on number of users - nothing to do with actual costs - and that will change as consumers become more savvy (and as more companies do away with this method of pricing).

I wonder for how much longer companies can justify a "basic" 1 user plan at say $20 per month, and a "premium" plan with X more users for $50 per month. Even other common differentiators such as storage space etc will become marginally less valuable in the eyes of software consumers as time goes on, I bet.

Is this the beginning of a shift in the traditional SaaS business model?

Posted by: Jon | June 18, 2009 9:24 AM