Social Software Chaos
by: David FiondaLast week, I attended the Gilbane Groups conference on Content Management and Social Software. I went through all of the exhibitors. Almost every one said their product had or will be incorporating social software as part of their existing or next solution release. In reality, only one company made it over the bar.
What is social software? According to wikipedia
“Social software encompasses a range of software systems that allow users to interact and share data.”
We have been aware of the many kinds of personal social software…our kids have been using them for years…instant messaging, test chat, discussion forums, My Space, Facebook, You Tube, Flickr
Here’s an interesting fact…Facebook just recorded it’s 350 millionth user…that almost the entire population of the US…
The burning question is…can these social software tools be applied to the enterprise and how?
Right now companies are struggling with this question and with good reason. Why all of this confusion? Well a lot of it has to do with the way software and technology trends develop and how companies respond…
For almost every technology trend, the following sequence of events seem to happen:
1. Murmurs – Someone coins a term and it starts to make its way around the web.
2. Buzz- One of the analyst firms picks up on it and starts to promote and drive it as the next greatest thing. The buzz grows.
3. Reaction – Initial startups will be organized. They print t shirts, (which are always printed before a single line of code is developed) develop a product and release a beta.
4. Innovators- Bloggers, consultants and experts get a hold of it and spread its gospel.
5. Opportunity – One of the companies pays an analyst firm to releases a paper with an analysis showing the incredible opportunity in the space.
6. Noise - A rash of startups, buoyed by market validation, launch their companies in the space. They start to preach their own version as better faster and easy to use.
7. Confusion – The established companies, seeing potential competition, add some of the feature set to their existing product and start marketing that they are also part of the trend.
8. Chaos – All of these companies start to sell and market, rushing solutions to market, creating chaos in the marketplace.
Social software for the enterprise is clearly in the chaos phase. There are so many companies out there that say they have a social software product, but so many don’t even come close.
What makes for great Social Software for the enterprise? Stay tuned….
