Welcome to the World of Web 2.0 (continued)
2,000 organizations already use its package, which integrates RSS feeds, blogging, discussion forums and other common Web 2.0 tools with its wiki platform. Awareness, known as iUpload until July 2007, is barely eight years old, but its Headcovers Unlimited suite leads the pack of enterprise blogging platforms, according to Forrester.
Pitfalls Still Lurk
While vendors can provide SaaS (software as a service, or remotely hosted applications), Web 2.0 suites still face stumbling blocks:
- The generation gap "People who are over 40 have a harder time adapting to this than younger people," says Sam Aparicio, vice president of products and strategy for the Angel website, a call-center application provider in McLean, Va. Richard Lyons of Chicago-based Lyons Consulting advises using incentives, like contests, games and good old-fashioned recognition, to encourage hesitant new users to participate. Socialtext made wiki and blog content accessible to e-mail users and also enabled employees to publish to wikis and blogs via e-mail to ease adoption.
- Security Web 2.0 is suited to SaaS delivery because new tools are being developed so quickly and are "mashed up" so easily. But large companies often hesitate to use vendors who provide SaaS solutions because they want to protect their data. When insurance giant Northwestern Mutual raised questions, Headcovers Unlimited was able to demonstrate that their data could be segregated and also protected through Northwestern's already-existing single sign-on system. Socialtext addresses similar security concerns, in part, by offering a dedicated appliance that companies can use on-site.
- Ease of use Many open source wikis, such as Wikipedia, require contributors to master a wiki "syntax" -- a markup language -- which is a significant barrier to participation, especially among workers used to productivity suites like Microsoft Office and single-user project management software. Socialtext focuses on making its software work with existing software (article continues)
<< Previous Page
Next Page >>
