Socialwok vs Socialcast

Socialwok (known as the "social layer for Google Apps") like the online organizer Producteev, shows us the new meaning of "cross-platform" definition. Realizing that users most of time spend in email clients (such as Outlook and GMail), Socialwok simply decided to get inside these email clients. Socialwok was one of the first services to use the new GMail API and has created the gadget that can be expanded on the entire GMail workspace (see screenshot) and allows to post messages to microblogs, share Google Docs files, images, Youtube videos and events from Google Calendar, search for Google Docs, post to Twitter or Facebook right from your GMail interface.

While Google freeze Groups development and Google Wave is still too raw, there is a small niche for social layer in Google Apps. That's where the new service Socialwok wants to play. And it looks co tasty, that Google should seriously think of buying it (though its developers are in Singapore). Socialwok is a mix of Twitter and Facebook for enterprise that is built specially for Google Apps. You can authorize in it only using your Google Apps account and inside you can easily collaborate on documents from Google Docs, events from Google Calendar, emails from GMail, videos from YouTube and Google Maps. And it's built on Google App Engine.

Sometimes the simplest tools can significantly increase business efficiency. One of them was invented by Socialcast. Recall, Socialcast - is an enterprise social network, owned by VMWare. So, there is nothing that affects business efficiency more than employees' motivation. And how IT systems help to improve their motivation? In no way. When employee looks at the IT system interface, he sees information, information, tasks, tasks, tasks. He completes these tasks, changes their status to "Completed" and .... gets the new tasks. And how nice would it be to get a "thank you" for the work done. This is the very simple feature that was recently added to Socialcast. Now, manager (or any user) can send to stream not only messages, files and links but also "Thanks". To Thanks-post you can attach standard or custom badges. And all co-workers will see this Thanks, and will be able to like it or add their kind words in the comments.

VMWare quickly fills its stack with Enterprise 2.0 applications. Previously, the company acquired the online file storage tool Mozy, then the Email/collaboration server Zimbra, then the online presentation service SlideRocket, and today the company has announced the acquisition of the enterprise social networking service SocialCast. SocialCast - was a pioneer in the Enterprise 2.0 industry. It's the company that (together with Yammer) invented enterprise microblogging back in 2008. And during these 3 years, this startup not only survived but also attracted an impressive customer base, including General Motors, NASA, and Nokia. In addition, SocialCast always excited us with their social innovations such as Facebook-like plug-ins. As for VMWare, it seems that to own a complete office suite, it lacks only the web-based text processor and spreadsheets. Most likely, soon the company will buy such solutions.

The tough competition that is now emerging between Facebooks for Enterprise, is forcing vendors to quickly invent new value-adding features. For example, Socialcast is trying to solve the problem of engaging executives into internal social network. According to Socialcast, most CEOs don't personally use intranet social solutions, because they don't want to be "equal" with all other employees. Of course, not any manager would be excited if his employees could follow all his actions. That's why Socialcast has invented Town Hall - the new feature, that allows you to organize online conferences between executive and the staff: CEO can schedule the date and time of the online meeting, invite employees to submit their questions, and when the time comes he logs in and answers the most popular questions. Then these questions and answers can be read by any interested employee.

As you know, the main elements in Facebook plan of becoming "an alternative to the Web" - are the social plug-ins. These are Like, Share buttons, comments and fan-boxes that site owners embed in their sites integrating them into one global semantic network with the center in Facebook. Socialcast, the pioneer in enterprise microblogging, invented something similar for business sphere. Socialcast Reach is a set of plug-ins that can be inserted into any business application with web interface. Like with Facebook, you just need to insert small Javascript-code to the app page. For now there are 3 types of these plug-ins: