As social-networking tools sites such as MySpace and Facebook, blog-hosting services such as Wordpress, Vox and LiveJournal, and even "wiki" tools such as JotSpot or Socialtext become more a part of the mainstream, companies of all kinds are looking for ways to incorporate those tools into their businesses, a development many people are starting to call "Enterprise 2.0."
In order to meet that kind of demand, a new group of companies are emerging that can provide those kinds of tools and services in an easy-to-administer package, for groups or companies — large and small — who want a "turnkey" solution. One of the companies that offers that kind of software is called Ning.com , and was co-founded by Marc Andreesen, formerly of Netscape. Another is a Toronto firm that I wrote about recently called PikSpot , which launched last month.
PikSpot makes it easy for groups to create a social network and foster interaction between members -- including the uploading of video clips, photos and other files -- and lets members vote on other people's content, among other things. The site launched with two main groups, one based around UndoTV and its founders Leo Laporte and Chris Pirillo, and another based around Toronto tech consultant Don Tapscott's new book on social media, called Wikinomics.
Another company that is just emerging from stealth mode today is Los Angeles-based Social Platform , which offers a social-networking suite of services — including hosting and 24/7 support — that is aimed primarily at large groups or companies. Founder and CEO Eric Schlissel runs a large hosting and co-location company in Los Angeles called GeekTek, and got the idea for Social Platform after he was approached by a large client, who wanted to know if GeekTek could somehow create a social-networking engine for his company and its customers.
Mr. Schlissel started putting together the team that designed and built Social Platform, and began signing up clients who wanted their own social-networking sites even before the software was built. Although the company was financed in the beginning with a small loan from GeekTek, the Social Platform CEO says that it is now "fully self-funded and in the black. We don't need any VC money."
Much as a corporation would use a suite of software tools to do its accounting or record-keeping, Social Platform is a collection of tools and modules that allow anyone to roll out a social-networking type of Website, Mr. Schlissel says. Companies can choose from modules that include chat and discussion forums, photo and video-sharing galleries, blog tools and wiki services, as well as banner ad modules, classified advertising plug-ins, and a "member rewards" module that allows companies to compensate users for a variety of behaviour.
One large client, he says, is Omotion.net, which puts together "street teams," who go out and promote concerts or appearances for various bands and artists. They got Social Platform to set up a system where each band or artist had a website for their street team, and modules that allowed them to take part in contests or win rewards for the number of signups or tickets sold.
"The rewards-based modules are completely controlled by the administrator, and so is the payment system," says Mr. Schlissel. "We can also integrate our clients existing legacy data systems and user authentication. And everything is fully brandable and customizable." Companies or groups can choose to have just the photo gallery module but not the video one, or just the shopping cart and the user forums, or the podcasting and streaming audio modules but not any of the others. Or they can choose to have all of the above.
Another one of Social Platforms' clients is the American Chemical Society, which used the company's software to set up a member-based network with a variety of tools, including a job board. "There's a dearth of enterprise-grade software for building social platforms," says Mr. Schlissel. "The more we talked to potential clients the more interest there was -- in fact, we started getting clients just on the promise that we would be building something."
And while many social-networking companies seem to be pursuing the "build and flip" strategy, Mr. Schlissel says Social Platform is in this for the long haul. "I think we're on the verge of some really awesome stuff in the social networking area," he says. "This idea of Web integration and services is just getting started. Right now we're capitalizing on the social-networking craze, if you will, but we're building something long-term here. We want to be more like Borland (a provider of corporate automation software), rather than YouTube."
