The Facelift however is just the starting point of a series of improvements we have put on our agenda for 2012. We will optimize the concept of the Social Software Matrix to the information needs of corporate decision makers who are ready to go Enterprise 2.0 and willing to empower their workforce with social software. The core is and will be the comparison of social software in key business use cases. Around that we will reorganize some of the contents, redefining categories and extending the publication of the insights we’ve gained from years of experience with social software in the workplace.

So stay tuned and remember:

Neo: What is the future of the Social Software Matrix?
Trinity: The answer is out there, Neo, and it’s looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.

The Social Software Matrix Team

The release of the 3.0 version of Lotus Connections in November 2010 was a further step in the strengthening of IBM’s position in the social software market. By including social analytics, simplifying the mobile access for users, optimizing the usability, extending the communities and forum functions and adding new compliance and auditing features IBM further improves and completes its social business suite.

Please let us know what you think about the 3.0 version of Lotus Connections and what experiences you have made with it.

This new area within the social software matrix allows each provider of a social software application to present themselves and their product. In contrast to the Social Software Matrix valued tools (see here), suppliers can put their products into the evaluation tool and provide a huge number of prospective customers with access their portfolio.

The Social Software market is growing constantly. Vendors are trying to attain the best position in the market while clients require customized software. On the one hand, there are vendors who are already well-established on the market, trying to develop their software through more and more sophisticated Web 2.0 features. On the other hand, there are vendors who are still trying to position themselves in the market. It is almost impossible to maintain an overview in this „jungle“ of Social Software. This is exactly where we step in. We are giving vendors the opportunity to present their tool on the market and announce it to a wide mass of prospective customers. Each tool provider has the opportunity to present his tool in the well-known categories.

Users looking for available social software tools can find them in the known social software matrix or benefit from the constantly growing pool of product ideas in the Rising Vendors Section. Furthermore, users that already have experiences with the featured tools inform other readers with their comments and reviews. The result over time is an assessment of the tools within the Rising Vendor Section by the users itself – just in the spirit of Web 2.0.

The new Rising Vendors Section will steadily to expand the range of featured and available social software tools in the market. In addition, we are constantly updating the list of social software tools in the matrix. As one source for this list, we are going to include the Rising Vendors Section.

Have fun browsing the rising vendors.

This partnership is a great step as it combines the approach of comparing
social software in business relevant categories with a group of Enterprise 2.0 practitioners. In fact this can be considered a paradigm shift as the partnership marks the first attempt to assess social software from a purely practitioner-based perspective, unbiased by vendor or consultancy influence and interests.

The first project of our partnership is an assessment of the tools used by the members of the 2.0 Adoption Council. Therefore, we have set up a members area where council members can log-in and evaluate the tools they use (see “2.0 Adoption Council” in the top navigation). We are excited about this project, and though we have to keep access to the evaluation process limited to the members of the 2.0 Adoption Council to keep results unbiased, we are happy to share our insights with the E2.0 community at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston

If you are an Enterprise 2.0 practitioner and work for a large company you can contact Susan Scrupski, the founder of the 2.0 Adoption Council, to join the council and get the opportunity to participate in filling out the “council-matrix” here on socialsoftwarematrix.org. ]]> http://www.socialsoftwarematrix.org/blog/announcing-a-partnership-with-the-2-0-adoption-council/feed/ 0