The Gilbane Advisor

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Free Mac Application for Reading Kindle Books Now Available

Amazon.com, Inc. announced “Kindle for Mac,” a free application that lets readers around the world read Kindle books on their Mac computers. The U.S. Kindle Store currently offers over 450,000 books, including New Releases and 102 of the New York Times Bestsellers. Kindle books can now be read on the Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, PC and Mac, and soon the iPad. Kindle for Mac features Amazon’s Whispersync technology which saves and synchronizes bookmarks and last page read across devices. With Kindle for Mac, readers can take advantage of the following features: Purchase, download, and read the many Kindle format books available; Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books stored on Amazon’s servers for free; Choose from 10 different font sizes and adjust words per line; Add and automatically synchronize bookmarks and last page read; View notes and highlights marked on Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle for iPhone; & Read books in full color including children’s books, cookbooks, travel books and textbooks. Several features will be added to the Kindle for Mac app in the near future, including full text search and the ability to create and edit notes and highlights. Kindle for Mac is available to customers around the world as a free download. http://www.amazon.com/kindleformac

Adeptol Partners with VersaPAC

In a move to strengthen reach in the Asian market, Adeptol announced that it has signed a partnership agreement with VersaPAC, a solution provider of information management systems and reseller of HP TRIM records management software.  With the partnership VersaPAC is moving from a legacy viewing system to Adeptol’s document viewing technology embedded in its Saffron web front-end application for HP TRIM. Saffron is available through VersaPAC resellers in Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, North America, and the United Kingdom. The integration allows Saffron to support viewing of over 300 file formats including documents from Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, various image files, and Adobe PDF.  Users will have access to the latest features such as document search, annotations, and document conversion to PDF – all from the viewer. Adeptol Document Viewer is a web-based viewer using Ajax technology, and is a built-in Information Rights Management (IRM) module that allows users to protect content by assigning policies to control the viewing, printing, navigating and saving of documents. http://www.ajaxdocumentviewer.com/ http://www.versapac.com.my/

More on Microblogging: Evolution of the Enterprise Market

Following my post last week on the need for additional filters in enterprise microblogging tools and activity streams, I participated in an interesting Twitter conversation on the subject of microblogging and complexity. The spontaneous conversation began when Greg Lowe, a well-respected Enterprise 2.0 evangelist at Alcatel-Lucent, asked:

“Can stand alone micro-blogging solutions survive when platform plays introduce the feature?”

I immediately replied:

“Yes, if they innovate faster”

Greg shot back:

“is microblogging autonomy about innovation, or simple elegance? More features usually leads to lower usability?”

And, later, he asked a complementary question:

“is there a risk of Microblogging becoming “too complicated”?”

Is Greg on to something here? Do more features usually lead to lower usability? Will functional innovation be the downfall of stand-alone microblogging solutions, or will it help them stay ahead of platform vendors as they incorporate microblogging into their offerings?

One of the commonly heard complaints about software in general, and enterprise software in particular, is that it is too complicated. There are too many features and functions, and how to make use of them is not intuitive. On the other hand, usability is a hallmark of Web 2.0 software, and, if we make it too complex, it is likely that some people will abandon it in favor of simpler tools, whatever those may be.

But that dichotomy does not tell the entire story. Based on anecdotal evidence (there is no published quantitative research available), early adopters of Web 2.0 software in the enterprise appear to value simplicity in software they use. However, as a colleague, Thomas Vander Wal, pointed out to me yesterday, that may not be true for later, mainstream adopters. Ease-of-use may be desirable in microblogging (or any other) software, but having adequate features to enable effective, efficient usage is also necessary to achieve significant adoption. Later adopters need to see that a tool can help them in a significant way before they will begin to use it; marginal utility does not sway them, even if the tool is highly usable.

Simple may not be sustainable. As I wrote last week in this post, as enterprise use of microblogging and activity streams has increased and matured, so has the need for filters. Individuals, workgroups, and communities want to direct micro-messages to specific recipients, and they need to filter their activity streams to increase their ability to make sense out of the raging river of incoming information. Those needs will only increase as more workers microblog and more information sources are integrated into activity streams.

In the public microblogging sphere, Twitter provides a solid example of the need to add functionality to a simple service as adoption grows in terms of registered users and use cases. As more individuals used Twitter, in ways that were never envisioned by its creators, the service responded by adding functionality such as search, re-tweeting, and lists. Each of these features added some degree of complexity to the service, but also improved its usability and value.

In the evolution of any software, there is a trade-off between simplicity and functionality that must be carefully managed. How does one do that? One way is to continuously solicit and accept user feedback. That allows the software provider and organizations deploying it to sense when they are nearing the point where functionality begins to overwhelm ease of use in a harmful manner. Another technique is to roll out new features in small doses at reasonable intervals. Some even advocate slipping new features in unannounced and letting users discover them for themselves. Hosted deployment of software (whether on-premise or off-site) makes this easier to do, since new features are automatically switched on for people using the software.

So back to the original question; can stand-alone microblogging solutions fend off the collaboration suite and platform vendors as they incorporate microblogging and activity streams in their offerings? My definitive answer is “yes”, because there is still room for functionality to be added to microblogging before it becomes over-complicated.

Based on the historical evolution of other software types and categories, it is likely that the smaller vendors, who are  intensely focused on microblogging, will be the innovators, rather than the platform players. As long as vendors of stand-alone microblogging offerings continue to innovate quickly without confusing their customers, they will thrive. That said, a platform vendor could drive microblogging feature innovation if they so desired; think about what IBM has done with its Sametime instant messaging platform. However, I see no evidence of that happening in the microblogging sphere at this time.

The most plausible scenario is that at some point, small, focused vendors driving microblogging innovation (e.g. Socialcast, Yammer) will be acquired by larger vendors, who will integrate the acquired features into their collaboration suite or platform. My sense is that we are still 2-3 years away from that happening, because there is still room for value-producing innovation in microblogging.

What do you think?

pTools Adds Social Media Content Distribution

pTools, a Content Management Software (CMS) provider, announced the addition of a range of embedded social media and networking features to its software. From within the pTools CMS, social media content can be re-distributed in many formats to other social networks and sites. A key feature is ‘TwitterDocs’, which allows users to post to Twitter as they publish content through the CMS. There is no need to separately login to Twitter, and the content-related Tweet is controlled and managed within the CMS and its workflows. In addition to Twitter, content can be presented on Facebook, LinkedIn, and indexed in live search engine results with no tweaking required. http://www.ptools.com/

VYRE and Wave2 Announce Partnership

VYRE Ltd, developer of the VYRE Unify content management system, announced a strategic partnership with publishing software specialist Wave2 Media Solutions Ltd. The two companies have signed an original equipment manufacturer agreement for VYRE to license the Wave2 Publishing Platform for integration within VYRE Unify. The Wave2 Publishing Platform is a rules engine that allows content providers to create their own advertising and marketing material. VYRE is integrating The Wave2 Publishing Platform into its next release of VYRE Unify version 4.5.1. VYRE Unify 4.5.1 will be available in spring 2010. http://www.vyre.com/ http://www.wav2.com/

Planning your agenda for the upcoming Gilbane conference

We are very pleased to have Jeremiah Owyang and Daniel W. Rasmus in our opening keynote session this year as we announced yesterday. Both have been very popular with our audiences is the past: Jeremiah, on last year’s analyst panel in San Francisco, and Dan as an opening keynote a few years ago in Paris at our (since sold) Documation event. If you can join us this year in SF you won’t want to miss them 8:30-10:00am, Wednesday, May 19th.

The conference program is mostly complete with just a few more speaker confirmations to go, so you can start planning your agenda anytime. The conference program tracks this year are largely role based, rather than technology based. This is a result of input from our attendees, as well as from our exhibitors. In both cases, this is a reflection of the ubiquity and maturity of many web and content technologies – attendees want to know which of these apply to their own specific requirements, and vendors continue to specialize to differentiate themselves in a very crowded market. One result, of our approach is that technology topics can be sprinkled across mutiple tracks – social software, for example. In order to build a relevant customized agenda, you will want to read about all of the conference sessions, but here is some role-based advice to get you started quickly:

If you are in marketing, or responsible for a public website, start with the Customers & Engagement track, and then fill in with sessions from the Content Technology and Content Publishing tracks.

If you are an Information Manager, Knowledge Manager, line of business manager or Project Manager, start with the Collaboration & Colleagues track and then fill in with sessions from the Customers & Engagement, Content Technology and Content Publishing tracks.

If you are a Technologist or in IT, focus on the Content Technology track, and then add sessions from the other three tracks to see what your customers are trying to accomplish with the technology.

If you’re in corporate or commercial publishing, check out the Publishing track and build a program around the Content Technology and Customers & Engagement track.

And don’t forget the in-depth conference workshops.

Filtering Microblogging and Activity Streams

The use of microblogging and activity streams is maturing in the enterprise. This was demonstrated by recent announcements of enhancements to those components in two well-regarded enterprise social software suites.

On February 18th, NewsGator announced a point release to its flagship Enterprise 2.0 offering, Social Sites 3.1. According to NewsGator, this release introduces the ability for individuals using Social Sites to direct specific microblogging posts and status updates to individuals, groups, and communities. Previously, all such messages were distributed to all followers of the individual poster and to the general activity stream of the organization. Social Sites 3.1 also introduced the ability for individuals to filter their activity streams using “standard and custom filters”.

Yesterday (March 3rd), Socialtext announced a major new version of its enterprise social software suite, Socialtext 4.0. Both the microblogging component of Socialtext’s suite and its stand-along microblogging appliance now allow individuals to broadcast short messages to one or more groups (as well as to the entire organization and self-selected followers.) Socialtext 4.0 also let individuals filter their incoming activity stream to see posts from groups to which they belong (in addition to filtering the flow with the people and event filters that were present in earlier versions of the offering.)

The incorporation of these filters for outbound and incoming micro-messages are an important addition to the offerings of NewsGator and Socialtext, but they are long overdue. Socialcast has offered similar functionality for nearly two years and Yammer has included these capabilities for some time as well (and extended them to community members outside of an organization’s firewall, as announced on February 25th.) Of course, both Socialcast and Yammer will need to rapidly add additional filters and features to stay one step ahead of NewsGator and Socialtext, but that represents normal market dynamics and is not the real issue. The important question is this:

What other filters do individuals within organizations need to better direct microblogging posts and status updates to others, and to mine their activity streams?

I can easily imagine use cases for location, time/date, and job title/role filters. What other filters would be useful to you in either targeting the dissemination of a micro-message or winnowing a rushing activity stream?

One other important question that arises as the number of potential micro-messaging filters increases is what should be the default setting for views of outgoing and incoming messages? Should short bits of information be sent to everyone and activity streams show all organizational activity by default, so as to increase ambient awareness? Perhaps a job title/role filter should be the default, in order to maximize the focus and productivity of individuals?

There is no single answer other than “it depends”, because each organization is different. What matters is that the decision is taken (and not overlooked) with specific corporate objectives in mind and that individuals are given the means to easily and intuitively change the default target of their social communications and the pre-set lens through which they view those of others.

Alfresco Announces Beta of Cloud ECM for SMB

Alfresco Software announced a Beta program for Alfresco SMB Edition, a cloud-based appliance designed for Amazon EC2. This new version of Alfresco Software’s ECM and social collaboration product is designed for small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). The Alfresco SMB Edition will offer a pre-configured Alfresco Cloud appliance that combines the Alfresco server, Explorer and Share modules into an on-demand offering aimed at SMBs with up to 100 users and 200GB of document storage. These appliances are hosted on Amazon EC2 and made available as paid Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). Alfresco has partnered with JumpBox, who specialize in building software appliances, to develop Alfresco SMB. Initially the beta will be restricted to US based subscribers with EU access to follow within two weeks. The program includes access to the Alfresco SMB paid AMI, although testers are expected to pay all relevant Amazon EC2 hosting fees. The Beta program will run from March 15 through May 20, 2010. http://www.alfresco.com

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