I've been thinking about this, and I realized that companies would probably start to use the Twitter API or a clone of it on their intranets, because they could then benefit from the same kind of innovation explosion that created the Twitter "ecosystem".
Twitter took off partly because it's API was ridonkulously easy to connect to. You can do it from any programming language, often in just one or two lines of code, with http authentication.
Twitter's API has been cloned in open source microblog packages like Laconica and (partially) in (my) OpenMicroBlogger. The missing piece is pulling RSS feeds into the stream and that's pretty trivial.
tacanderson
· 7 months ago
I think the Twitter API is one piece of it. What makes FriendFeed so compelling is the personal search capabilities. The ability to dump everything into one place where others can follow or anyone can go in and search for the most recent activity.
An E2.0 version of FriendFeed would actually make Intranets useful :)
Meryn Stol
· 7 months ago
Tac, have you heard of Socialcast? It has likes, comments, and a live activity stream. (at least it claims to, I haven't seen it working) http://www.socialcast.com/
tacanderson
· 7 months ago
I've kicked the tires on a lot of E2.0 tools but not SocialCast. It sounds interesting, the only question I have is how well it integrates into existing work tools. That's been the bane of any enterprise tool; getting people to input the right content. Until tools can capture information as I work (like FriendFeed does) they won't ever reach their potential.
Carrie Young, Socialcast
· 7 months ago
Socialcast definitely integrates into existing corporate tools. Users can email posts into their corporate social network, and receive replies via email as well. You can also integrate with IM, add a bookmarklet in your web browser (to share links), and for users on Gmail or Google Apps email, you can install a widget of activity inside your inbox.
Additionally, Socialcast allows you to integrate with tools like Twitter, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Vimeo, etc. When you're using these tools on the web, Socialcast pulls in your activity as you work.
@Carrie. In regards to Socialcast: Does this work inside the firewall or is this purely a hosted solution? From my experience there seems to be a lack of behind the firewall solutions and I don't think many large companies are ready to jump to the cloud yet.
I think overall there is definitely a need for something like this in E2.0. There are lots of silo's in large companies that all do an excellent job at serving their purpose, but the tools that can pull all of them together with the ease of use of something like iGoogle or a stream like Friendfeed still seem to be lacking.
Most of the tools that I've seen with this type of capability are part of a larger application. These tools do a good job to some extent but their primary focus is content from their own application and dashboard of their own content, and I think many companies have much more information that they wont necessarily migrate into these new platforms.
DeskAway
· 7 months ago
Thats an interesting idea! it would be a good way for someone to evaluate how much they get done in a day, and also for the manager to evaluate the same
mrhames
· 7 months ago
There's a chance that this solution is a hacked version of e-mail. Right now, I work in an agency with 7 different offices in the US. We're connected via phone (four digit dialing to any office), e-mail, and Microsoft messenger. We also have sharepoint, that has the build in blog, wiki, and pages for work groups, clients, etc (we're somewhat paperless).
If chat were built into mail (like Google and Yahoo have done), then we could, in theory, lose messenger, which already synchs with e-mail. Further, the updating of content on Sharepoint can be tracked into a lifestream of sorts that people could subscribe to.
All Comments
Twitter took off partly because it's API was ridonkulously easy to connect to. You can do it from any programming language, often in just one or two lines of code, with http authentication.
Twitter's API has been cloned in open source microblog packages like Laconica and (partially) in (my) OpenMicroBlogger. The missing piece is pulling RSS feeds into the stream and that's pretty trivial.
An E2.0 version of FriendFeed would actually make Intranets useful :)
Additionally, Socialcast allows you to integrate with tools like Twitter, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Vimeo, etc. When you're using these tools on the web, Socialcast pulls in your activity as you work.
Feel free to look at our demo at demo.socialcast.com. Thanks!
I think overall there is definitely a need for something like this in E2.0. There are lots of silo's in large companies that all do an excellent job at serving their purpose, but the tools that can pull all of them together with the ease of use of something like iGoogle or a stream like Friendfeed still seem to be lacking.
Most of the tools that I've seen with this type of capability are part of a larger application. These tools do a good job to some extent but their primary focus is content from their own application and dashboard of their own content, and I think many companies have much more information that they wont necessarily migrate into these new platforms.
If chat were built into mail (like Google and Yahoo have done), then we could, in theory, lose messenger, which already synchs with e-mail. Further, the updating of content on Sharepoint can be tracked into a lifestream of sorts that people could subscribe to.
http://www.cubetree.com/
Thanks,
@mrbipana