Mozilla has heard the pained cries of IT managers everywhere and today announced that they're going to put out an Extended Support Release version of Firefox to help organizations better manage and support the software.

The ESR version of Firefox will be developed as a separate product from the Firefox consumers are used to using, and thus utilizing the ESR won't be without its drawbacks. For one, there's an increased likelihood of bugs being introduced and persisting, since the ESR won't have the same massive beta testing group that Firefox proper has. Over time, the ESR runs the risk of becoming less secure than Firefox itself, and might even confuse some users if they're accustomed to using the standard version at home.

The move represents a bit of a change of heart for Mozilla, who previously brushed off concerns about providing proper enterprise support. By contrast, Google Chrome has made an effort to ease the pain of IT departments. Late last year, Google's three-year-old browser surpassed Firefox as the second most widely-used browser, according to one firm's statistics. By taking the enterprise a little more seriously, perhaps Mozilla can manage to minimize the competitive threat posed by Chrome.

The new ESR will not cover Firefox Mobile or the Thunderbird email client. Mozilla says it will publish implementation details sometime in the next week.

The Kindle Fire is a tablet, built off Android. Amazon developers forked Android somewhere along the way, probably from either the Frozen Yogurt 2.2 or Gingerbread 2.3.4 so really, this is actually a tablet built off a smartphone OS and not the official Android tablet OS, Honeycomb. Yet, Amazon is about to blow the rest of the Android tablet ecosystem out of the water.

What does Amazon have that Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG, Huawei do not?

In a word ... everything.

See our main news for the feature list of what the new Kindle Fire will bring. Media, retail, music, books, video. It is like Facebook's "Read, Watch, Listen" embodied in a device you can actually hold, without the open social graph API tied to it. The Kindle Fire is not just about premium Android apps (more on that below) but a full-fledged media device a la Apple's iPad. Really, no other Android tablet can integrate that same experience and that is why the tech media has been excited about this thing since Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos hinted at it in May.

The first large Android tablet was the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab. It was built off of Android 2.2 and essentially was a large Samsung Galaxy S. The first real Android tablet based off of the tablet OS was the Motorola Xoom built off of Android 3.0. In the almost eight months that the Xoom has been on the market, it has been a basic flop. There are a variety of other Android tablets on the market right now, based both on Honeycomb and the various smartphone derivations such as the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 and 8.9 (Honeycomb) and the HTC Flyer and Evo 3D View (Gingerbread).

The Kindle Fire is everything that the Motorola Xoom is not

What exactly is the Kindle Fire? It is not like the 7-inch Galaxy Tab that is basically a large smartphone. Nor is it a Xoom-like large tablet (though there are rumors that a 10-inch Kindle Fire may come out next year). Basically, this comes down to a simple question: what Android apps will the Kindle Fire actually run?

It Boils Down to Apps

The answer: will be smartphone applications chosen specifically by Amazon to be optimized to the 7-inch screen that are compatible back to Android 2.2. There is no word yet though on how Amazon will upgrade its build of Android. A big part of Ice Cream Sandwich will be backward and forward compatibility of Honeycomb and smartphone apps. Will Amazon upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich when it is available or will they stick with the smartphon build. How will Amazon handle OS upgrades in general?

This comes down to the fundamental nature of what Kindle Fire actually is. It is a fork of Android yet built on top of Android. How does that make it any different from the skins that the OEMs build on top of Android like HTC does with Sense? Like HTC, Amazon did not fundamentally change Android. They built on top of it and by doing so created something entirely new that is laser-focused on Amazon's services.

You may notice a theme here. There are a lot of questions that do not have answers except in the halls of Amazon's development center. We have contacted Amazon for an explanation of how they built out Android for the Kindle Fire. We are hopeful that they will get back to us but to be honest, they almost never do when it come to issues like these.

I.T. can still wipe data from lost or stolen phones, but only corporate data. It can deploy enterprise apps over-the-air, but it can't see what personal apps a user has installed. And it can't track the location of a phone unless the employee gives it permission to do so.

For I.T., Control Where it Matters

If that sounds like a deal that would make the control-freak I.T. admins uncomfortable, Divide offers some enterprise-ready features that should sweeten the deal. On the work "side" of the device, enterprise-grade applications for email, contacts, calendar, text messaging, IM and Web browsing are provided, and they sync with ActiveSync-compatible systems, including Microsoft Exchange, Google Apps and Lotus Notes.

I.T. still has the ability to set policies on the devices - for example, to enforce encryption or to specify under what scenarios an employee can connect to the network. It can also enforce legal terms of service, like the management of email signatures, and it can require a password to be entered every time a user switches from the personal profile to the work one.

The switching process is done by a simple double-tap of the "home" button.

Divide also includes a secure API (application programming interface) that allows third-parties (or even I.T. itself) to write apps that access corporate data. These apps can then be sent down to end users' devices over-the-air.

Finally, I.T. can brand the business profile to their liking, right down to the background image and the icons that appear on the homescreen.

Private Beta Today & Other Company Details

Today, Enterproid launches into private beta via a sign-up form on its website. A mid-2011 commercial launch on the Android platform is planned with support for Windows Phone 7 and iOS devices to soon follow.

There are some interesting co-founders behind Enterproid, it's worth mentioning: CEO Andrew Toy formerly served as VP of Mobile and Syndication Technology at MTV Networks, VP of Business Development Alexander Trewby spent 10 years at Morgan Stanley as VP of Mobile Development and VP of Engineering David Zhu was previously Director of Engineering at iOS-focused startup Smule, the maker of a slew of  #1 hits on the iTunes App Store.

Enterproid was also a finalist in the 2011 Qualcomm Ventures QPrize competition and is presenting at the DEMO conference today in Palm Desert, California.

As Google continues to position Google Apps as an alternative to the services like Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes, it does make sense for the company to offer its users a way to turn this feature off, though. The Gmail interface is already unfamiliar to a lot of people and the conversation view is yet another change that could make the transition harder on many users.

The option to turn this feature off should appear in the Gmail settings within the next day or two.

The Web 2.0 era gave rise to social applications such as Twitter and Facebook. These services made it easier to share information and connect with family, friends and experts. The enterprise has followed this movement by creating its own social applications that fit within a secure environment.

The report further explores the role of the open Web and the importance of Web services and applications to talk with one other easily and securely. The open Web has allowed services like Facebook to flourish by simply adhering to the HTTP protocol.The report demonstrates how enterprises can embrace a similar architecture to build their own social layer.

It also explores:

• The rise of scripting languages, open frameworks and the "view source" culture.
• The rise of REST APIs in the Enterprise.
• The move to the cloud and a Web-Oriented Architecture.
• Building the social layer in the enterprise architecture.

We think you'll find our report about the new social layer (embedded below) to be essential reading for the new technology enterprise. And remember, you always you can find our day-to-day coverage about social IT at ReadWriteEnterprise.

You may also download the report on Slideshare.

The lowest tier, "Silver" is aimed at business professionals and offers tracking analytics, ad removal and 30 lead captures a month for $19. "Gold" subscribers will receive 70 captures as well as the ability to custom brand their channel home for $49. And finally for $249, "Platinum" enterprise subscribers can gain access to an unlimited number of lead captures, and have the added control functionality within their channel to moderate things like comments and transcripts.

Previously, SlideShare users could pay to use the site's lead capture functionality, but only on a per lead basis. SlideShare had success on this micropayment model, but the desire to add more PRO features made the decision to go freemium an obvious one for the company.

The company is thinking about the future, SlideShare CEO Rashmi Sinha told ReadWriteWeb.

"It allows us to keep building our community with a compelling free offering, and to layer on advanced functionality that helps businesses and professionals get the most out of SlideShare," said Sinha.


The features have been privately tested in beta with 125 companies for roughly a month and a half, and many large brands are making great use of the features. Dell, Microsoft, Cisco and Pfizer are among some of the early adopters, and Sinha says many of these companies have already started using the service more because of it.

A robust customization element allows users to change the interface of their business's Pogoplug to reflect company identity and branding. Emails can be customized in the same way. Domain and email address identities are customizable as well.

• Metrics
• Web View-Only Sharing: share viewable files over the web while preventing them from being downloaded
• Multiple Users
• Remote backup: continuously mirror all or part of your Pogoplug storage to a second Pogoplug in a remote location

ReadWriteWeb covered Pogoplug's cloud printing feature

But is app usage the true measure of the device's success at making corporate inroads? Or does it just show that people don't play with their iPhone apps while at work?

Localytics: iPhone is Still More of a Personal Device

In reviewing the results, Localytics believes that the iPhone "continues to be a personal device most heavily used outside of working hours." While we'll agree with their conclusion that these results offer developers insights which can impact their marketing, advertising and promotional strategies, we're not so sure that app usage offers a direct correlation to how much iPhones are used in the workplace. After all, like the Blackberry devices before them, the iPhone's primary work-related task may not be app-related at all - it's probably email and phone calls. And neither of those items, obviously, were tracked in the Localytics study.

iPhones in the Corporate World

Ever since Apple licensed Microsoft's ActiveSync technology for full Microsoft Exchange support back in spring 2008, the Apple smartphone has been slowly gaining ground in the corporate world. In April of last year, for example, Forrester Research presented case studies on three major corporations that had deployed thousands of devices to their customers. The three companies -  Kraft Foods Inc., Oracle Corp. and Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. - said that "the benefits of iPhone over other mobile devices include a happier, more productive workforce and lower support costs," noted Forrester analyst Ted Schadler in the report.

A later report, this one by Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore published in November, said that the iPhone "is making inroads into the Enterprise." Specifically, he estimated that 2 million iPhones would be sold to big businesses by year-end for a total Enterprise market share of 7%, up from 2% in 2008. Whitmore attributed the surging popularity to a combination of four factors: user satisfaction, the onscreen virtual keyboard, enterprise-ready applications and sluggish competition in terms of developer support on other platforms.

Conclusion? iPhones Live in Both Worlds

Although it's probable that iPhones are still used more as personal devices as Localytics suggests, it's clear that business usage is trending upwards.

In order to determine the iPhone's true "business usage," though, we would need to see recent numbers of iPhone deployments in the corporate world in addition to numbers that show how many people use the iPhone's email application for business-related communication purposes. Combined, that data would paint a clearer picture of how little or how much the iPhone is used as a work-related tool. Application usage alone cannot show this.

The report notes collected findings from Cisco Web appliances - popular security devices used in a number of corporations worldwide - that help to prove Facebook's popularity among business users today. Out of all website visits tracked by Cisco in 2009, 2% were to social networks. And out of that 2%, 1.35% were to Facebook alone.

The Risks

But what is it about Facebook that makes it a threat?

• Malware & Spam: While companies still cite productivity losses as a major concern (one-third block Facebook precisely for this reason), malware is increasingly considered the primary reason for blocking the site in the workplace. Since April of 2009, there has been a 70% increase in the number of companies reporting spam and malware attacks via social networking sites. Specifically, more than half reported spam via social networks and over one third reported malware. The report mentions how threats like the Koobface worm, the Mikeyy Mooney worms and others have made social network sites much more dangerous places than before.
• Employee Behavior: However, it's not just the malware and spam that makes the networks dangerous, it's how users behave when they encounter these risks. Of the firms surveyed, 72% believe that users' behavior could endanger security, up from 66% in April of last year. In other words, firms don't believe that their users are very Web-savvy, tending to fall victim to these sorts of threats and scams.
• Data Loss: Another danger of social networking sites is how users tend to over-share private information with others, not realizing how public that data may actually become. A great example of this faux pas was exhibited last summer when the wife of the UK's MI6 chief blew his cover by posting revealing details online. On a smaller scale, Facebook users may unknowingly reveal more details about a business's own private data, deals, or other insider-only knowledge than they should. Facebook's recent privacy changes only exacerbate this problem.

What Can Businesses Do?

Unfortunately for those in charge of enforcing corporate security, simply blocking Facebook and other social networks via URL is not a realistic solution anymore. The networks are often a large part of a company's marketing and sales strategies, notes Sophos, meaning they cannot be blocked outright. Instead, companies are encouraged to use a unified approach for mitigating threats that combines data monitoring, malware protection and granular access for their employees.

Although it's not noted in the Sophos report, there is no security measure in place today that can keep employees off social networks for good. Business users whose company restricts the use of these sites are nothing if not ingenious when it comes to finding a workaround. Anecdotally, we've heard reports of employees discovering that Facebook was still accessible via the mobile site or via SSL (https://) even when the main URL was blocked. Additionally, numerous employees have downloaded mobile apps on their unrestricted Blackberry handhelds or simply access the site on their personal mobile phones. And for the highly determined social networkers, there are always the Facebook proxies.

The real solution to the social networking security problem is to embrace sites instead of blocking them. Rather than being overly restrictive, companies would do better to make social networking policies a part of their corporate policy and procedure manuals, spelling out what is and is not acceptable within their organization. Left up to users, it's clear that for some, it's anything goes...and that's a danger most companies cannot afford.

This guest post was written by Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist at Ustrategy.com - a boutique consultancy focusing on helping companies succeed. Ravit authors a blog at www.ravitlichtenberg.com.

Today, it is impossible to separate social media from the online world. Facebook reached 350 million users last month -- 70% of whom are outside the US -- and it accounts for 25% of the Web's traffic, according to Pew nearly one in five people on the web use Twitter or some other service to check status messages, and 94% of enterprises plan to maintain or increase their investment in enterprise social media tools. The social media conversation is no longer considered a Web 2.0 fad -- it is taking place in homes, small businesses and corporate boardrooms, and extending its reach into the nonprofit, education and health sectors. From feeling excitement, novelty, bewilderment, and overwhelmed, a growing number of people now speak of social media as simply another channel or tactic.

So what will social Web bring next? What will "being connected" mean? What will the next experience be for the 2 two billion people who are connected to the Internet? Here are 10 ways what we've called social media will evolve in 2010.

Social Media Will Become a Single, Cohesive Experience Embedded In Our Activities and Technologies

By this time next year, social media will no longer be "social media" -- it will be an integrated, unquestionable component of your online and offline experience. Last year we spoke of cross-platform integration across media sites. Open APIs and OpenID made that possible, and even LinkedIn announced last month that it too will finally open its APIs. 2010 will be about integration and a single, cohesive experience across platforms as well as across products and devices -- Web, mobile, TV, and video -- will become near-inseparable experiences.

Users will access content from any device or platform, co-create and mashup their photos, videos and text with traditional content while interacting with each other. Publishers will create new kinds of content for the connected world, and the last years' lull in good entertainment will finally be lifted. This trend will cut across all of our activities -- from playing games to shopping to emailing and texting -- nothing will be lost; everything we do will be gathered and streamed together, allowing people to view their world of activities as if it were projected in front of them, open to change, review and input at any point in time from any device or online tool.

Social Media Innovation Will No Longer Be Limited By Technology

With Web technology maturing and the near-elimination of previous barriers such as closed platforms and discrete logins, companies will now look to innovate the way they use existing technology, rather than focus on technology enhancements themselves. We will see a move to leverage existing assets -- content and capabilities -- in new ways, turning information to wisdom and insight to action. Whereas once user research required focus groups and usability tests, companies will utilize the Web's capabilities to achieve the same. Naturally occurring conversations will be utilized in product innovation and design, and companies will create incentives for people's attention and engagement while repurposing and analyzing content and engagement in new ways that will deliver valuable input.

Mobile Will Take Center Stage

Worldwide, the iPhone alone accounts for about 33% of mobile web traffic and IDC predicts the number of mobile web users will hit one billion by 2010. As the technological barriers come down, people will increasingly use their phones on-the-go to access social networks, search, read content and find location-based information. Our phones will be used as a central hub and beacon -- enabling a slew of new capabilities and experiences.

Expect an Intense Battle As People and Companies Look To Own Their Own Content

2009 marked the year of open Web, and divergence of content, making content available anywhere, anytime, by anyone and to everyone; it was the year content exploded across the web, platforms and devices. The issue Google solved so magically -- content find-ability -- will become all but moot in the coming years. Instead, content relevance and quality will become the key focus. In 2010 we will start to see convergence as companies take measures to own their own content, its location and its cost. Last month, Rupert Murdoch announced he may opt News Corp out of Google, instructing it to de-index its publications from the search engine and giving exclusive rights to Bing for a fee. This means that content publishers will be able to determine where they make their content available and at what cost.

With the growth of user generated content and the dwindling relevance of search results, people will gradually shift their trust from large aggregators like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and move to searching and finding content at specific locations and, eventually, creating and integrating their own content hub into the rest of their personal digital experience. "People don't realize that everything they do -- on Facebook, Ning, Google and with their credit cards -- is being collected, tracked, analyzed, owned and monetized by these companies who provide (so-called) free services. It's not a healthy model." Says John Faber, COO of af83, a Drupal development house and co-founder of the upcoming DrupalCon.

Enterprises Will Shape the Next Generation of What We've Called "Social Media"

It was easy to forget that enterprises and large institutions are the originators of some of social media's pillars: listservs, forums, intranets and collaboration tools. As social media became a public domain, enterprises have been cautious participants, predominantly in the product space, with few visionary leaders like Zappos, IBM and Dell. But cautionary they are no more. With a reported average of 25% increase in funds allocation toward social media activities, in 2010 we will see a surge in adoption of social media across product, services and solutions companies.

Having the need and the funds, enterprises will determine the next generation of social experiences. They will push enhancements that meet their needs, specifically around monitoring, automation, alignment with the sales cycle and integration with existing systems, expanding social "media" to encompass the ecosystem of social computing across solutions, and making them actionable for the company. Jive, blueKiwi, Remindo and Sharepoint support companies internally. Most recently, Salesforce.com released Chatter, designed to turn the corporation, and CRM, social. With its APIs opening later this year, "Chatter can become a new layer over its Force platform, already being used by 68,000 customers, enabling companies and developers to leverage the Salesforce infrastructure in a secure environment," said Bruce Francis, VP corporate strategy Salesforce.com.

Next page: ROI Will Be Measured -- and It Will Matter

ROI Will Be Measured -- and It Will Matter

Return on investment on social media activities has been challenging to most companies this year. Surveys show only 18% of companies say they saw meaningful return on investment from their social media activities while the other 72% report modest, no return or inability to measure the return on their investment in social media. While the definition of ROI is evolving to better fit the world of relationships and networks, the ability to demonstrate ROI in hard numbers -- not in followers or fans -- will become a baseline business requirement in 2010. Already, both traditional firms and startups are working feverishly to demonstrate they can turn hype into science. But, only those companies who will be able to analyze and predict hard returns on investments will last.

Finally: Real, Cool and Very Bizarre Online-Offline Integration

Virtual worlds, games and avatars were just the beginning of the online-offline integration. In 2010 we'll see a greater push on this front as distance and physical walls will matter even less. Augmented reality -- already integrated into Yelp's latest geo-tagging enabled application -- will allow users to find relevant information and people depending on their location; Twitter360 will help people find each other, connect and see updates by location all while on the go through their mobile device. People will be able to scan products on shelves but process the sale online; you'll never need to ask for a business card again at events -- and you may actually get promotions and discounts that match your interests.

Many "Old" Skills Will Be Needed Again

An economic downturn coupled with the surge of social media eliminated many traditional marketing and PR roles. But this year, we'll see the return of professionals to the field. Enterprises will turn back to marketers who specialize in understanding customer psychology and who are experienced in addressing these both offline and online. Research and development divisions will turn to customer experience professionals to draw on user needs and ideation as part of their product improvement and innovation process, and sales and support will continue to deliver services online. Expect to see job postings for social media managers, social media psychologists and social media executive administrators to help manage the infinite tasks involved with communities and social media campaigns.

Women Will Rule Social Media

2009 revealed the growing role women play online. Women make 75% of all buying decisions for the home, and 85% of all consumer purchases. Social networks have at least 50% female members, and it is women ages 35-55 who make up the fastest-growing population on Facebook -- not the expected Gen-Y population as previously anticipated. Previously limited by organizational hierarchies and job demands, women today are free to create, express and promote themselves using social media channels. Innately excelling at communication, relationship building and multi-level attention, women will take the reins on their careers and network becoming both a sought-after consumer segment as well as driving business strategies for social-media-connected companies.

Next page: Social Media Will Move Into New Domains

Social Media Will Move Into New Domains

As social media becomes integrated into our experiences online, it will have an impact on verticals such as nonprofit, job training, education, and health care. University of the People -- a UN-backed initiative to offer free education in emerging markets -- is using the power of distance learning and virtual collaboration. Obama's campaign for job training also highly relies on the power of online interaction. "The top 10 companies to work for are going to become learning companies. Instead of having 10% of time to philanthropic activities, they'll spend 10% of time on learning or teaching," says Chris Heuer, founder of Social Media Club and director at iStrategyLabs.

"Sites like I'm Too Young For This, and Know Cancer Community prove that no topic is too complex for social collaboration. These site help people connect and share information previously only available to their doctors," says Jennifer Benz of Benz Communications, a consultancy that works with companies to introduce social media capabilities into employee benefits and health care communication. "Companies who integrate social collaboration and conversation into health care find they have more knowledgeable employees and patients who can make smarter choices and improve the quality of their care."

Social media as we knew it even 6 months ago has changed. By this time next year, it will have become fully integrated into everything we do online and offline. By the end of this year we'll see a move toward greater control over content and companies will fight over social media land grabs in preparation for the future.

By next year, we will no longer speak about social media technology but about what we've been able to do with it. We will discuss power of ownership and only accept quality, relevant content. As we move to automatically accept a narrowed selection of the mass content online, we will begin to crave larger reach again and the natural process of chaos and order -- constriction and expansion, convergence and divergence -- will repeat itself in an ever-accelerating pace.

Whether you are an individual, a startup, small business or a large corporation, an online presence and an ongoing conversation with your constituents is a baseline requirement -- and will take time and expertise. Companies are diverting resources and rethinking their traditional outreach strategies. "Whether you're recruiting, looking for investment, trying to get buzz -- you need to be visible," says John Nogrady, director, emerging business at Microsoft bizpark, and serial entrepreneur. Brian Zisk, founder of SFMusicTech, which is taking place in San Francisco this week, says "If you're out there as a genuine contributor in the community you can reach out to many people. Take the FooFighters' free Facebook concert, or Zoe Keating -- a local artist with over 1.2 million fans online. Their ability to connect with their fans was made possible because of the Internet."

As you read this, it may seem far reaching but so did a presidency won through the power of online community not too long ago. Whether you are a novice finally giving in to the pressures to "get on social media," someone who is highly experienced, or a visionary already looking for the next big thing, you will play a role in social media in the coming year even through your simple, daily actions. And as the social media wave dissipates into the vast ocean of connected experiences, the term itself will become an entry in dictionaries and encyclopedias and we will embark on a new era of knowledge, accessibility and experiences unbound by distance, time or physical walls.

Photo by Francois Bouly

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Web Trends

The Age of Mega Content Sites - Answers.com and Demand Media

Two companies that produce massive quantities of new content every day, Answers.com and Demand Media, are rapidly moving up the list of top U.S. web properties, as measured by comScore. Answers.com has risen from #26 to #13 in just two months, and Demand Media has risen from #24 to #15 in the same time period. Is the fact that these sites produce so much content, and are quickly gaining in popularity as a result, cause for concern about the future of the Web?

As Facebook Ages, Gen Y Turns to Twitter

Facebook is getting old. No, people aren't getting tired of it, it's actually getting old, as in its population is aging. In May of 2008, the median age for Facebook was 26. Today, it's 33. So where are today's college students hanging out now? Well, to some extent, they're still on Facebook. Surprisingly though, they're also headed to another network you may have heard of: Twitter.

Amazon Turns Twitter into a Marketplace - Are You Concerned?

This week, Amazon sent out emails to their Amazon Associates members touting the latest addition to the company's affiliate program: a new feature called "Share with Twitter." According to the email, participants can generate "tweetable" links to any Amazon product after first logging into their Associates account. After updating Twitter, any person who clicks through on the link and makes a purchase will earn the participant referral fees payable through the Associates program.

Thanks to Mozilla, Web Gets Less Ugly, Good Type Gets Machine Readable

Recently, a consortium of type designers and web designers have gathered around a new font format specification called Web Open Font Format (WOFF). The format would allow more typefaces to appear across the web and to be readable by both humans and search engines. With support from Mozilla announced with the release of Firefox 3.6, the question of web fonts might be satisfactorily resolved in the near future.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise, devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' and using social software inside organizations.

Enterprise 2.0: Declaring War Does Not Work

At the Enterprise 2.0 conference this week, Andrew McAfee made a few points about the approach to enterprise technology and how it might be changed. McAffee, of the Center for Digital Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, is considered the father of Enterprise 2.0. His views reflect how Enterprise 2.0 is evolving but still with a fair degree of resistance for its adoption.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

Enterprise 2.0 LaunchPad: Newbies Take the Stage

At the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, we witnessed some of the enterprise community's brightest new stars. Enterprise 2.0 Launchpad offered early-stage companies a chance to shine. In a gong-show like presentation series, the four finalists took to the stage to battle it out for the title of best newcomer.

SEE MORE STARTUPS COVERAGE IN OUR READWRITESTART CHANNEL

Web Products

Discovering Great iPhone Apps: 5 Recommendation Services Compared

The iPhone App Store is a blessing and a curse. It's one of the best things about the mobile platform, but it's so popular that finding great new apps to download can be a real challenge. Where there's a monetizable pain-point, services will flower! Enter a variety of new iPhone app recommendation services that aim to point you toward your next download and pocket the affiliate fees for paid apps.

Below we've posted a chart comparing the features of 5 new services for iPhone app discovery.

The New MSN: Will More White Space and Local News Make You Visit It?

Microsoft announced this week a radical redesign of its MSN homepage. Today's MSN homepage for the US market is a busy mix of ads, hundreds of links and some customizable local news and weather widgets. The redesign, MSN's first major redesign since 2004, puts a new emphasis on search, local news, video and integration with social networks. The new page features more white space, a tabbed design and a new MSN logo.

The Very Strange Story of the Startup That Says It Made $10m Before Launching

Ben Behrouzi came from the shadowy Lead Generation business, but some people in that field said he played too dirty. Now he's got a real-time search engine that just came out of beta today, called Leapfish, and he says the company will already report $10 million in revenue this year despite having barely launched to the public. This is a strange story, so consider suspending your disbelief so you can see what Leapfish has to offer.

PayPal's X: A Platform to Pick Your Pocket

After waiting for two months for PayPal to release its much-anticipated platform, the day finally arrived for PayPal X. ReadWriteWeb first covered the company's announcement in late July and this week, at San Francisco's Concourse Exhibition Center, developers and press people waited with baited breath to see what was earlier described as a "platform as ubiquitous as the electrical outlet."

Ribbit Launches Google Voice Challenger

Ribbit announced this week the launch of Ribbit Mobile. Ribbit Mobile is a cloud-based VoIP telephony service that brings together web-based calling, smart call routing and voicemail transcriptions. It is hard to look at Ribbit Mobile without comparing it to Google Voice. Just like Google Voice, Ribbit gives users a new phone number or they can use call forwarding. Ribbit Mobile also has quite a few features that Google doesn't offer, including the ability to make calls from within the browser.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

The tech sector is subjected to the same indignities, beginning with a new enterprise search product from our friends at Google, who insist that users will stay on your pathetic website for about eight seconds unless they find exactly what they're looking for. And how ever shall they find it? Google Commerce Search, of course!

Here's a prematurely festive and depressingly commercial demo video:

Sure, it'll make users happier by decreasing the keystrokes between rabid greediness and commercial satiety, but at what cost? That's a factor you'll have to contact Google to actually learn about; pricing is not available online.

It's dirty electronic retailer ROI powered by Google - happy holidays. Webinars are coming to a monitor near you on November 12, November 17, and December 3.

With Xobni Enterprise, I.T. admins can manage the deployment and permissions surrounding the plugin's use via a web-based portal that provides access to user's profiles as well as a groups management feature. By placing different subsets of users into groups, I.T. can deploy custom versions of the plugin to different users. For example, everyone company-wide may get a plugin that offers LDAP integration, but only sales professionals would receive the version that connects to Salesforce. Admins can also choose to "switch off" other previously default integrations such as the Facebook and Twitter extensions.

To push the plugin out to end users, Xobni Enterprise offers an MSI file and registry settings that can be modified as necessary.

Extensions for Salesforce, SharePoint, and More

At launch time, Xobni's Solution Provider Program has partnered with a number of Enterprise vendors to provide extensions and integrations for their new system. The current list of partners includes Atlius Consulting, Cogent, Echo Lane and Interdyne BMI, which help Xobni integrate SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce CRM platforms among others.

The new service also comes with an Extensions Software Development Kit (SDK) which allows in-house developers to write their own extensions to integrate other platforms beyond those which are currently available. Xobni suggests this SDK could be used to deliver company news and information from an internal corporate portal, specific business application, or any other web service.

Other Features

Another general enhancement available with this version of the plugin is Xobni's expanded search capabilities that allows users to search calendar appointments, tasks and archived PST files. The search feature includes advanced filters which let users find results by limiting searches to email contents only or the To:, From:, and  or Subject: fields of their email messages. Users can also access their entire contact database from the auto-complete field in Outlook's "Compose" window.

Pricing

The company webpage for Xobni Enterprise does not include any pricing information, only a link to "Request More Info" from the company. This is likely because each Xobni system is being somewhat custom-built in terms of price because there are additional costs to run the pre-defined extensions created by the company. Depending on which extensions a company chooses to deploy and however many users will be using them, the overall cost of the Xobni Enterprise system will vary. However, the company informs us that the system starts at $30 per user per year with volume discounts available.

Xobni has seen over 3 million downloads of their plugin, including both free and paid versions, since their initial debut. This new offering represents the second revenue stream for the company, the first being the launch of Xobni Plus, a premium version of the plugin that sells for $29.95. They also claim to have a presence in 80% of Fortune 500 companies thanks to employee adoption outside of the traditional I.T. infrastructure, a trend known as self-provisioning and one that has steadily increased over the years.

Companies looking to maintain control over what their employees can do on their company computers often end up having no choice but to purchase the enterprise services provided by the startups their employees are already using in order to once again centralize control within I.T. If Xobni's adoption across the enterprise is as strong as they claim, they may soon have several companies looking to implement the Xobni Enterprise Service so they can do just this. Other companies may be tempted to try the product for the first time now that it offers I.T. friendly tools and enterprise level support.

More information about Xobni Enterprise is available here on the company's website.

Weebiz seems to be going full speed. In just a few months, companies around the world have registered and started to use Weebiz' business center as an easy way to improve their business relationships and promote themselves and their products.

As promised, Weebiz has announced that first-class company accounts will be available this October. All scores from free accounts are being recorded and will be transferred to upgraded accounts.

Why offer this kind of prize?

First, it's a good way to say thank you to our members. Secondly, because Weebiz is a business community, throwing in a little competition certainly doesn't hurt.

According to CEO João Santos, "The €1 million challenge is our way to recognize the importance of our members. We want to recognize their importance to us and show them that Weebiz is all about them."

Santos invites all companies to register on Weebiz, fill out the application, and take the challenge.

Having an online presence today is far more than having a website. Social media is the order of the day, and everyone agrees that companies have to reach consumers through these innovative channels. What few people are talking about is how companies should be reaching each other using these same tools.

Some business fairs occur annually, some every other year, but none at the time of your choosing. Moreover, they are expensive and require complex PR and marketing to be minimally effective. Online directories, on the other hand, are usually free and work around the clock all year long. However, we are living not in the age of information but in the age of information overload. In directories, your company quickly gets lost, buried beneath a ton of competitors.

The ideal solution to drive business networking to the next level would have to be inexpensive and permanent, while allowing your company to stand out from the crowd, establish real connections, share industry and market information, promote your products and services, and discuss and execute business opportunities.

Of course, some may argue that companies can't really have "friends" in the traditional sense. So, why use the social networking concept for companies? Take Weebiz and ReadWriteWeb, for instance. Weebiz is one of ReadWriteWeb's sponsors, which means we have a relationship. So, while saying that we are friends may be an exaggeration, we are definitely connected in a relationship. These are the kinds of connections Weebiz leverages, along with many other kinds of business relationships, such as clients/suppliers and so on.

One other question that is asked is, Why would I need a network for companies if I already have a professional network. Well, for starters, people can change positions and move to other companies, and when they do, they take their networks with them. On Weebiz, the network, clients, partners, and suppliers remain with the company, independent of whoever manages the company's profile. A network nowadays is regarded as a valuable, even priceless, asset. The idea behind Weebiz is to put this asset in the hands of the organization as a whole, instead of an individual.

By connecting to clients, suppliers, and partners on Weebiz, companies indirectly connect to many other businesses and find many other potential relationships as well. The result is a vast network in which opportunity flows. Weebiz simply leverages your connections and brings the power of social networks to your business.

Visit us at www.weebiz.com or check out our lessons for business men in a public toilet and tell us what you think.