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Social business software developer Jive Software announced the next-generation platform of its business-focused social media service, featuring a simplified user experience and new applications. The new platform is available in the cloud and via Try Jive, for a promotional, free 30-day trial. The platform includes Jive Anywhere, a capability that extends social business to the Web at large, enabling users to access social functions from any Website or Web application.
With Jive !App Experiences, users can invoke applications and merge them into the social business workflow, while Jive Edge is a social intelligence engine that optimizes a range of social business processes, such as search. There were also enhancements in Jive What Matters activity streams, including customizable Attention Streams focused on specific processes and people. In addition, the company launched Jive for Teams, a group collaboration solution for teams of 25 to 250,000 people.
“Social business is no longer for early adopters only,” Nikos Drakos, research director at Gartner said in a statement. “It is becoming a mainstream phenomenon, and the market is evolving rapidly. This calls for powerful solutions that solve real business problems and provide an effortless collaboration experience by merging seamlessly into everyday workflows.”
What Matters, Jive’s intelligent business activity stream, has been enhanced for a more streamlined user experience, with activity streamsthink Facebook Wallwith smart filtering to remove idle chatter. What Matters also includes a new capability called Attention Streams, personalized, curated streams focusing on a particular area of interest. Users can also specify their own Attention Streams and aggregate different combinations of content to keep track of particular people, departments, projects or activities.
With Jive !App Experiences, users can merge !App functionality into whatever they’re working on by typing a “!” character and choose the desired !App function from a pop-up menu. The company calls this capability “!App mentioning”, similar to the way Twitter works with messaging. For example, a user collaborating on a business plan can insert the latest pipeline report using a CRM !App, or embed a chart using a diagramming !App, or assign a task to another user with a project management !App. A second capability, called App Actions, lets users share content, discussions and other activities with any third-party app. For example, a user could click to submit a document to a translation app or log a discussion about a product bug into an issue-tracking tool.
The !App platform is based on OpenSocial standards, designed to provide scalable plug-and-play interoperability. “This is an excellent example of how community-driven innovation from the OpenSocial standard can be leveraged in an innovative and customer-friendly way,” Mark Weitzel, president of the OpenSocial Foundation and developer evangelist at Jive, said in a statement.