Socialcast

Today, Socialcast announced the availability of Socialcast Ease (enterprise activity stream engine), our expanded technology platform designed to support a new form of enterprise collaboration through activity streams.

With today’s announcement, we’re moving beyond Enterprise Microblogging. While it’s still a key feature of our technology platform, we’re now focused on offering robust integrations with other systems as well. It’s not just employees who can share updates to the network – machines, systems, and processes should be able to share information, too.

Key features of Socialcast Ease include:

• Activity Stream Engine: Our new real-time interface aggregates information from existing business systems with employee-generated messages, including microblogging updates, into a live, searchable activity stream that provides employees with a unified view of data and activities flowing across the enterprise.
• Complete Microsoft Outlook Integration: A first-of-its-kind Outlook connector integrates Socialcast Ease into the actual Outlook application, offering users a familiar, cohesive interface for their entire messaging toolset. Socialcast Ease works seamlessly within traditional email workflow to eliminate “just another-tool” burnout. Messages and updates from a company’s Socialcast network stream into dedicated Outlook folders, where employees can read, respond and share new information directly from their inboxes. This integration works with Outlook 2003 and 2007, with support for Outlook 2010 coming soon.
• Behind the Firewall or On-Demand: It is now possible for security-minded customers to build a secure, robust social network since Socialcast Ease can be deployed behind the firewall as a rapid-install virtual appliance, leveraging VMware, Hyper-V, or other server virtualization platforms. Our free hosted deployment option is also still available.

Socialcast Ease and our available enterprise integrations are immediately available to all customers*. Visit your network today and try out the new features and capabilities.

*Note: On-premise customers will receive the Ease update in 1-2 weeks.

Today Socialcast released an important update to the desktop application that will bring more alerts and notifications to you no matter what you’re working on.

Now, when the desktop app is open, users will receive pop-up notifications each time a new message appears in their home stream. These brief, small messages will appear in real-time and will hover over any application you’re already working in. Users will no longer have to check the desktop app for updates, but rather, updates will automatically appear. These notifications are an unobtrusive way to see what is going on in a network without interrupting users’ workflows. Also, clicking on the message will take you directly to the message in the desktop app interface.

To get the desktop app, or to download the latest version, visit your network and click on “View All Socialcast Applications” in the right hand navigation bar. Then, click on the Desktop App icon to either install for the first time or download the newest version. Current users do not need to delete the old version.

Today, Socialcast released a new version of the Socialcast iPhone App, available for immediate download from the iTunes App store. This is an exciting update with many new features that will make staying in touch with your team on-the-go much easier.

New Socialcast iPhone App Features Include:

Push Notifications

Users can now receive real-time notifications on their iPhones from their Socialcast community without needing to check or open the app.

• Broadcast messages and @Mentions will trigger immediate alerts, including sounds and pop-up messages
• Notifications for unread messages will display a red badge with the number of new messages, identical to the iPhone’s new email or text message badge
• “Blackout periods” are available for notifications; users have the option to turn off updates during a set period of time

We recognize that employees often have their phone with them, but not a computer, when out of the office. These new notification capabilities were designed to give users instantaneous access to important information when being in front of a computer isn’t possible.

Image and Video Uploads

Socialcast users can now upload images to the community directly via the iPhone app. Video uploads are also supported for those with the iPhone 3GS. With this new functionality, it is possible to share any image or video immediately after it’s captured. For example, marketing can post images of the latest ad campaign on display downtown, or a video shot during fieldwork can be shared for instant discussion.

Other improvements in this update include:

• Multiple file attachments (photos and videos) now supported in messages and comments
• Improved login workflow, bug fixes, interface improvements

Many of these updates were suggested by our customers – thank you to all those who have given feedback on the app! Download it today and let us know what you think.

Today, Socialcast announced several new features and updates to make it even easier to use. Many of the updates came from user feedback from our customers – thanks to everyone that has made suggestions, offered their use-cases and ideas, and served as beta-testers in recent weeks.

New Socialcast Features:

Email to Groups

Stuck in Outlook all day with no time to log into Socialcast? You can now email a message into one specific group. Inside each group, find the unique email address in the right hand navigation bar. Use this email address any time you want to share a message into that group directly.

Beacon

Have you been away from your desk, and need to see what messages you’ve missed? Now, Socialcast has a “beacon” feature that alerts you to unread messages in each of your streams. Look for the blue bubble to the right of a stream, indicating that you have unread messages there.

Desktop App Updates:

The desktop application has been completely refreshed to be very similar to the web app.  We received such great feedback on our new version of the platform that we wanted to make the desktop app just as feature-rich and fast.

Enhancements include:

• Completely new user interface
• Beacon feature shows you when there are new messages in any of your groups or streams
• Edit, delete, and flag posts from the app
• Sort posts by type, and run a full search of the network
• Smaller memory footprint and improved performance

To get the desktop app, or to download the latest version, visit your network and click on “View All Socialcast Applications” in the right hand navigation bar. Then, click on the Desktop App icon to either install for the first time or download the newest version. Current users do not need to delete the old version.

Today we released our native Socialcast iPhone App that is available for immediate download from the iTunes App store. This has been a highly requested feature, and we recognize the need for employees to be connected to colleagues when on the road. This new application (that is, of course, free) enables mobile access to your Socialcast community with a robust set of features that makes using the app easy and effective.

We’ve made sure that all conversations are threaded in this app, giving you the clear context around messages you find and share from your phone.

With this app, Socialcast is keeping its focus on activity streams – making filtering information and people easy on your iPhone. In the app, you can switch between activity streams, allowing visibility to your home stream, group activity, and custom streams.

Other functionality allows you to:

• Share messages, comments and likes
• Search the entire network for information
• View anyone’s profile and contact information
• Browse employee photo galleries
• Follow and unfollow users

The app can be used by on-demand and behind the firewall users for instant access to their communities.

Download it today and let us know what you think.

More than two and a half years after we launched our first social employee community, the Socialcast innovation continues with a complete overhaul of our Enterprise microblogging software.

Today, we’ve launched a brand new interface designed to make using Socialcast easier and more intuitive. Focusing on activity streams – or custom pages of information that you follow based on people, topics, and groups – Socialcast has made finding and navigating through all of your steams simpler than ever before. The new improvements include:

Simpler “Share” form that makes it easier to send messages (the system also supports line breaks)

• All of your streams are listed on the left hand side of your screen, making browsing and searching quick and easy
• Flagged messages let you follow up on important topics
• Socialcast applications that you haven’t tried yet appear on your homepage
• Real-time trending topics and a tag cloud are available in your Home stream
• Network History helps you find recent information post-vacation or after being away from the network for some time
• Custom streams and new groups can be created directly from your Home stream
• Export RSS feeds of any stream into your RSS reader

The new interface surfaces all of the tools and options you need in one straightforward location – your Home stream. One of our clients that tested the new interface noted that, “This is a whole new way of experiencing Socialcast – I feel like I just ‘get it’ now. It’s so easy to use.”

Stay tuned for more upcoming features and improvements soon – and follow us on Twitter for the latest product updates and announcements.

After more than a year of research, Socialcast today became the first microblogging platform to offer a robust suite of analytical tools that provides insight into the social activity of communities. With the goal of measuring the value of tacit knowledge management and informal social activity, Social Business Intelligence® provides real-time feedback and actionable insights into the employees, topics and conversations that users are finding important and that spur active participation.

No other microblogging software offers the depth of data that Social Business Intelligence® provides. Our analytics are designed to measure the previously immeasurable aspects of a network, such as important discussions, informal relationships and influential individuals, through quantitative data.

Social Business Intelligence® isn’t just about tracking basic signup, usage and posting statistics. Instead, the platform will tell you – in real time – the topics, people, groups and conversations that are promoting active use of your community. At the same time, it will show you the passive usage and “listening” behavior of members, demonstrating the value that newer or less vocal employees are gleaning from the network.

At the center of Social Business Intelligence® is the conversation. The tool tracks the movement of information between people, teams, and departments. It keeps a pulse on the data that’s generated by members, exposing the most important topics as identified by a workforce. With real-time access to the front lines of the company, management can instantaneously understand what’s happening in the business.

Social Business Intelligence® also seeks to tackle the challenge of participation inequality – the principle that in a social community, approximately 90% of users do not contribute. Our analytics track data about what topics and which employees help transition inactive users into more active participants with the goal of creating more participation and active listening. With this information, companies can drive adoption by making meaningful conversations more prominent in the network, or by formally empowering socially influential employees to onboard or teach new users.

Social Business Intelligence™ is available now – details of the platform are available here.

This morning, companies with YouTube integration set up may have seen a sudden influx of new videos into their streams. YouTube made a change today to their feed format, pushing previously “favorited” or shared videos to the community again. We deployed a fix to minimize the new feed from YouTube. If your stream was affected, please refresh your browser and the duplicate videos should disappear. Thank you for our patience, and we apologize for this inconvenience.

Socialcast is always open to user feedback, and this week, many of the features we have released are in response to requests by users to improve their Socialcast experience. If you have feedback, questions, or ideas, follow us on Twitter for a quick response to your thoughts.

What You Requested:

Tag Cloud: Socialcast has released a tag cloud for each community. Tags are highly important as they indicate trends in user-generated content, giving real-time insight into the pulse of the community. The top 100 tags in each network will be available and weighted with five tiers of use. Access the tag cloud as a drop down menu under the “Share” box.  Clicking on a tag filters your stream to include all of the posts including that tag. You can use the tag filter in combination with the message type and category filters, allowing you to create a robust, personalized search.

Invite New Members to a Group and the Network: Several users reported that they wanted to invite fellow employees to specific groups, but when those employees weren’t members of the overall network, this couldn’t happen. We’ve made it possible for you to now invite a person who isn’t a member of the network into a group and the network in one quick form. Your colleague will receive an activation email to join the network as well as your group.

Hide Private Groups: Private Groups are now only visible to the members of the Group and are no longer listed in the Groups directory. This has been a highly sought-after feature, allowing truly private conversations about the business to happen discreetly with appropriate members only.

Delete Groups: Group creators can now delete an entire group, removing all messages and the avatar from the Group directory.

API: Last week, we released our Socialcast API. The Socialcast API includes a robust set of operations to interact with your company’s messages. We encourage developer feedback and questions. If you have any questions or suggestions, please visit our API developer support group or contact us at support@socialcast.com

If you have started developing any clients on our API, let us know – we’d love to hear from you!

This morning, Twitter was experiencing a denial-of-service attack that affected its API. Therefore, until the issue is fixed, your Socialcast community will not be importing your tweets. Once Twitter has recovered from this issue, Socialcast will again be able to import your Twitter feed. Thanks for your patience!

For updates on Twitter’s service, visit their Status page.

UPDATE: As of Monday, August 10, 2009, Socialcast’s Twitter integration is fully working again.