Press Release: New Research Report on Social Media Released
For Immediate Release:
Gilbane Group Releases New Report on Enterprise use of Social Media
Cambridge MA, June 9, 2008. Gilbane Group Inc. today announced the general release of Collaboration and Social Media 2008- Taking Stock of Today's Experiences and Tomorrow's Opportunities, a comprehensive investigation of the growing market for social computing technologies and solutions.
Collaboration and Social Media 2008 shows how social media, based on “Web 2.0” technologies, is approaching the tipping-point. First generation tools now in widespread use, such as text-oriented email, web sites, and shared workspaces, are soon to be supplemented by social media applications that incorporate blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, rich media, and other innovative technologies. The Gilbane research report predicts the transition from horizontal applications to vertical solutions, and offers a number of strategies to help companies with the transition.
Co-authored by Geoffrey Bock Lead Analyst for Collaboration and Steve Paxhia, Director of the Publishing Strategy & Technology Practice, the 130-page report combines a national survey of marketing executives with in-depth case studies of ten companies and a comprehensive vendor catalog. Nora Ganin Barnes, Director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, led the survey team that interviewed business leaders in medium and large American companies.
“Compared with the high penetration rates for first generation tools, adoption rates for Web 2.0 applications are still at a low level,” says Bock. “But marketing executives who are using Web 2.0 solutions rate many of these new technologies as being very effective. As word spreads, I believe that companies are going to profit greatly from new ways of doing business.”
The case studies illustrate how social media is used to build brands, generate new ideas, and improve the efficiency of the interactions among all stakeholders including employees and customers. Today, companies achieve measurable business results at a fraction of the cost and time previously required. “The new generation of collaboration and social media solutions are bringing companies closer together as well as closer to their customers,” adds Paxhia. “This often represents a fundamentally new way of doing business.”
“We first found serious enterprise use of blog and wiki technologies, in our report published in March 2005; clearly things have come a long way.”, said Frank Gilbane, CEO of the Gilbane Group. “It will be fascinating tracking enterprise use of social use as it reaches a new scale in 2008.”
Availability
Collaboration and Social Media 2008 is available at no charge for immediate download at http://gilbane.com/Research
Collaboration and Social Media 2008 was sponsored by EMC, SAP, Near-Time, Octopz, Awareness, MindTouch, WetPaint, and Zoho.
About Gilbane Group, Inc.
Gilbane Group Inc. is an analyst and consulting firm that has been writing and consulting about the strategic use of information technologies since 1987. We have helped organizations of all sizes from a wide variety of industries and governments. We work with the entire community of stakeholders including investors, enterprise buyers of IT, technology suppliers, and other consultant and analyst firms. We have organized over 50 educational conferences in North America and Europe. Information about our widely read newsletter, reports, white papers, case studies and analyst blogs is available at http://gilbane.com.
Contact:
Gilbane Group, Inc.
Ralph Marto, 617-497-9443 ext 117
ralph@gilbane.com
