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Gist Public Profiles is a new service that lets users publish their contact details, including name, company name and profile picture, personalized news and social network data on a public Web page. Ideally, this service -- and certainly any inclusion deals with Google, Bing or both -- will help Gist grow its users base. While Gist is a fledgling offering yearning for traction among any users who will try it out, e-mail inbox management and socialization tools are gaining traction in businesses. Xobni launched Xobni Enterprise, a secure version of its e-mail search plug-in, while Microsoft launched Outlook Social Connector.
Digg, Google Wave Seize Spotlight at Web 2.0 Expo
NEW YORK The Web 2.0 Expo was not quite the news frenzy that its San Francisco-based brother Web 2.0 Summit was in 2009. But the show's creator, high-tech publishing guru Tim O'Reilly, provided some zing Nov. 17 by arguing that arms races between Google and Apple as well as Facebook and Twitter threaten to stifle the Internet as we know it. O'Reilly also said Microsoft would emerge as a major player in the open Web ecosystem. Digg founder Kevin Rose and Digg CEO Jay Adelson discussed the past, present and future of Digg, while Hunch Chief Product Officer Caterina Fake and Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd held forth on the social Web. Lifehacker founder Gina Trapani discussed some Google Wave use cases.
MindTouch Joins Google, Zoho in Collaboration Cloud
MindTouch Nov. 19 joined Google, Zoho, Microsoft and a raft of others in SAAS with MindTouch Cloud, embracing the Internet as a way to deliver collaboration applications. MindTouch Cloud lets non-technical sales representatives or business managers pull business data from CRM and ERP applications, such as Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, and Oracle, and weave them into documents in team workspaces. MindTouch CEO Aaron Fulkerson said his company is targeting Microsoft's SharePoint collaboration platform and Google Apps, which offer classic document and spreadsheet applications without blending in the business data.
Polycom Offers Customizable Telepresence Solution
Polycom is unveiling its ATX 300 offering, designed to enable businesses to work with audiovisual integrators to create customized telepresence environments based on Polycom technology. Polycom officials say this differentiates ATX 300 from the turnkey solutions rivals like Cisco and Tandberg offer.
10 Persistent Messaging Problems That Google Wave Solves
Google Wave suffered something of a letdown when the company began rolling it out more broadly to the public. Pundits largely panned the real-time collaboration platform for squelching productivity. However, eWEEK believes these folks didn't spend enough time getting comfortable with the platform. Below are 10 work-related problems Wave solves, most of which come courtesy of Daniel Tenner, CTO and co-founder of Woobius, which makes a Web-based document sharing tool, bookended by some solutions from eWEEK. This is timed for the impending launch of Wave to more people, which Google CEO Eric Schmidt said is coming soon.
Cisco Ups Bid for Tandberg to $3.4 Billion
Faced with the possibility of coming up short on the necessary shareholder support for its $3 billion bid for Tandberg, Cisco is upping its offer to $3.4 billion. Cisco says the offer is a final one, and has pushed the deadline for getting 90 percent shareholder support to Dec. 1. Cisco said this will be the final offer for the video conferencing company. The video conferencing space is heating up, as illustrated by Logitech’s announcement Nov. 10 that it is buying LifeSize for $405 million.
Google Wave Goes Twitter Route with Follow Feature
Google Nov. 12 added a button in Google Wave that let users shun waves they don't want to see in their in-box. When someone adds a user directly to a wave, or if a user contributes to a wave, he will automatically be following that wave. But when a user sees a public wave he would like to get updates on, he must hit the & follow& button in the wave panel tool bar to be a party to that wave. The following tool will make Wave more palatable for users who complained that the real-time collaboration platform is too noisy, busy and cluttered. This is important, particularly as Google prepares to roll out to more users in the coming weeks.
LABS GALLERY: Liaise Leverages Outlook for Project, Task Management
There are many systems available today that are designed to help workers manage tasks and projects, ranging from classic project management platforms to portals to SAAS-based business collaboration tools. But nearly all of these applications force users to leave the collaboration platform in which they are most comfortable #151namely, e-mail. Liaise, a new product that debuted at the recent DEMOfall show, addresses this by letting users stay in e-mail #151building tasks and action items based on what a user types in an e-mail. But while Liaise is intriguing, the current beta is still fairly limited and works only as a Microsoft Outlook plug-in.
Cisco Extends Tandberg Deadline, Waits for More Shares
Cisco Systems is extending the deadline for shareholders of Tandberg to accept its $3 billion offer for the Norwegian video conferencing company. The deadline is now Nov. 18. So far, Cisco has only received acceptance from investors who hold 9.37 percent of Tandberg stock. Cisco officials are looking for a 90 percent acceptance, or they will consider withdrawing the offer.
OffiSync Adds Google Sites Support to Target Microsoft SharePoint
Gunning for Microsoft SharePoint, OffiSync Nov. 10 launched a paid version of its Microsoft Office plug-in that lets users access their Microsoft Office documents from the Google Sites wiki. OffiSync, which has hundreds of thousands of users, is brave for targeting SharePoint, the killer collaboration application that earns Microsoft $1 billion per year. OffiSync will now come in a standard and premium edition. The standard edition will remain free, while the premium edition with Sites support will cost $12 per user per year, or a one-time payment of $30.
Cisco Inbox to Integrate E-Mail, Enterprise Social Networking Tools
Cisco told eWEEK it is working on Cisco Inbox, a combination of Cisco WebEx Mail and the company's social networking tools for businesses, including Enterprise Collaboration Platform, Show and Share video and Pulse tagging. Combined with the company's new Intercompany Media Engine, Cisco will have a server-software combo Google, Microsoft and IBM would find tough to compete with. At a time when these vendors are looking to well-rounded solutions, Cisco appears to have an edge -- and it's backed by the network.
10 Tips to Make Facebook Easier to Navigate
Facebook has amassed well over 300 million users in its five-plus years of social networking life. But those users didn't join overnight; some of them joined last week, or last year, and they may not be acquainted with even the most basic features and functionality of the leading social network platform. To help those folks, eWEEK has tapped into the Facebook blog for tips on learning the Facebook ropes. This obviously won't cover everything, so you can also go to the Facebook Help Center here.
How Cisco's Network Supercharges Collaboration Versus Google, IBM, Microsoft
Cisco Systems Nov. 9 jumped into the hosted e-mail and enterprise social networking arenas, challenging Google, Microsoft, IBM and a legion of smaller startups. But what is new here? Guido Jouret, CTO of Cisco's emerging technologies group, explains how Cisco solutions such as Pulse and Show and Share are different from existing offerings from Cisco's competitors. In short, Cisco's network chops afford it integration opportunities that elude the other vendors.
Cisco Adds Social Software, Hosted E-Mail to Collaboration Lineup
Cisco Nov. 9 at its Cisco Collaboration Summit began its largest collaboration product launch to date. While the launch covers the usual Cisco strongholds -- IP phones to media servers to unified communications -- the company also rolled out hosted e-mail from its PostPath buy and enterprise social software. Cisco WebEx Mail is intended to compete with Google's Gmail, Zoho Mail, IBM LotusLive iNotes and Microsoft Exchange Online. Enterprise Collaboration Platform will battle IBM Lotus Connections and the swath of enterprise social software products from MindTouch, Socialtext, Jive Software and others.
More Opposition to Cisco Tandberg Bid Arises
Two European financial firms argue that Cisco's $3 billion bid for video conferencing rival Tandberg is too low considering its performance and stock price. The opposition from Panta Capital and Scott Associates comes three days before Cisco's Nov. 9 deadline on the deal, and joins stockholders with about 30 percent of Tandberg shares in saying the bid is too low. Cisco officials have called the offer fair.
Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Offers Tabbed E-Mail, Filtered Search
Mozilla will introduce a new version of Thunderbird, its open-source e-mail application, in mid-November. Built on the same rendering platform as Firefox 3.1, Thunderbird 3 will include features such as tabbed e-mail, filtered search and a one-click address book.
Siemens Demos Twitter in UC App
At the VoiceCon 2009 show in San Francisco, officials with the Siemens Enterprise Communications Group will show off the upcoming integration of Twitter with the company’s OpenScape UC application. The demo is the latest example of the growing presence of social networking programs in business, improving not only communication between workers, but also between companies and their customers.
Novell Pulse Launches with Google Wave Support for Real-Time Collaboration
Novell launches Pulse, a real-time collaboration platform designed from its inception to work with Google Wave through the platform's federation protocol. Similar to Wave, Pulse includes instant messaging, live document authoring and editing, and social networking tools. But unlike Wave, Pulse features the security, management and compliance capabilities required by businesses. Novell executives showed how Pulse communicates with Wave at the Enterprise 2.0 show in San Francisco.
Second Life Takes Virtual Reality Behind the Firewall at IBM, Navy
Linden Lab Nov. 4 launched Second Life Enterprise, a behind-the-firewall version of its 3D virtual world software. Linden Lab has loaded Second Life on a server for IBM, Northrup Grumman and the U.S. Navy to test in a beta. Second Life Enterprise includes LDAP integration, intranet-grade authentication and central access controls for protecting proprietary information and managing content created in the 3D worlds. Linden Lab is also building a marketplace to let its third-party programmers sell their enterprise applications and virtual goods.
Google Wave Open for Federation Among Other Wave Providers
Google makes its Google Wave Federation Protocol available to let would-be Wave providers build their own Wave servers and get them communicating with other Wave servers, similar to the way e-mail servers talk to one another. This federation would ideally pave the way to making Wave ubiquitous, making it more available for future users. But given the learning curve stumping early users of Wave, how many programmers will want to build their own Wave servers? That remains to be seen.