Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Could a New Social Software Suite Knock Out Facebook and LinkedIn?

According to this latest article on paidContent.org Jeff Dachis, former CEO of Razorfish, has teamed up with Austin Ventures to roll out a corporate social software service that will be tailored to the enterprise. AV mentions that it will focus on “creating an industry leading strategic consulting practice and an enterprise class Social Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) suite.” But how successful will this SAAS suite be with competition coming from all corners, and a lack of involvement in social software from the enterprise.

This post on A VC, describes how social software include certain characteristics like open API’s, customizable services, and the ability to upload different media. All of these characteristics are an enterprise nightmare. IT departments will have a field day trying to limit access to these sites, for security reasons.

The real benefit from social networking sites is the input gathered from the community, but how will a brand new start-up instantly gain millions of users? How will this new venture compete with LinkedIn and Xing since they already have a majority of the enterprise social networking market, and let’s not forget that Facebook is slowly closing in with enterprise tailored apps and restrictions. AV and Dachis will have to bring about new innovative concept within enterprise networking to really stray away people from Facebook and LinkedIn. Can they do it? We’ll have to wait and see.

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