Content Players Look To Social Computing For New Sources Of Revenue

Has social computing become the enterprise software vendor's strategy to avoid a recession? It's evident there's a rush to help organizations become better collaborators. If you stick 2.0 behind any typical enterprise-oriented term, you've probably heard all the versions. ECM 2.0, knowledge management 2.0, and, of course, the party favorite, Enterprise 2.0. The real question is whether we'll see real revenue as these types of systems are rolled out.Part of the rush to social computing is driven by the unavoidable saturation of the consumer side of Web 2.0. Internet favorites such as YouTube and Facebook continue to weave themselves into the way we communicate and share content. What's harder to pin down is why Jen in accounting needs Web 2.0 to become a better knowledge worker.

That's been the premise of discussions InformationWeek has had with many of the enterprise software companies extending their content management portfolios. A lot of the familiar names like OpenText, Alfresco, Vignette, and Oracle (BEA) are pitching their social computing prowess, aggressively sinking dollars into researching and developing the best way to provide Acme with an intranet 2.0.

For additional clarity, one of our recent discussions was with Kirsten Knipp, Vignette's senior product marketing manager, a few days before Vignette made its social computing announcement.

I asked Knipp how Vignette's Community Apps and Community Services combination will help clients cut through the noise and get their hooks into some of social computing's business benefits.

"Our customers understand that social computing can be valuable, but they sometimes struggle with making it meaningful for their specific businesses," said Knipp.

"It's obvious to any organization that blogs and wikis are beneficial, but they don't know exactly how to use them either internally or externally," she added.

One of the potential bonuses for bigger vendors like Vignette is how newer tools like blogs and social bookmarking can be introduced in the context of existing applications. The argument is that users are more prone to adopt new functionality when it's delivered in familiar work environments.

Knipp was quick to point out its community products were built from the ground up, something she says will make it easier for customers to bolt on social tools as needed.

"Unlike the slew of so-called 'Frankensuites' that are cobbled-together solutions, the Vignette Community product line is a unified offering delivered as a suite of modules. One of our goals is to help reduce IT impact and ensure unified moderation and management schemes," added Knipp.

Community Services, generally available today, provides ratings, reviews, commenting, and tagging capabilities. The application component to the product line, powered by blogs, wikis, and forums, becomes generally available by midsummer, according to a company spokesperson. "We're working with partners in the interactive space as well as directly with customers to help them map out how they can apply these capabilities to drive ROI," said Knipp.

Yesterday Vignette adjusted its 1Q revenue guidance. We'll see if its social computing strategy provides an additional lift.