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Socialtext 4.7.5

Author	Socialtext Inc., California (USA)
Version	4.7.5
Link	www.socialtext.com
Similar Solutions	Atlassian Confluence, Liferay Social Office, Mindtouch

Socialtext was founded in 2002 and is one of the most experienced and best known vendors of enterprise social software in the market. Their wiki-based collaboration platform is extended by a mature microblogging service and most suitable for company internal use. Trying to be very innovative, the focus is on providing extra functionality rather than enhancing core features. The well integrated microblogging tool, the desktop connector and SocialCalc, a spreadsheet editor for wiki-pages, are useful innovations but Socialtext should address their weaknesses in structure and basic functionality.

Socialtext - Use Cases

	Enterprise Communication is a double-edged sword in Socialtext. While blog functionality and comments are rather simple wiki-workaround solutions, the integrated microblogging service “Signals” is excellent. It can be used directly within the platform (browser), accessed via mobile phones or through a desktop client that seamlessly integrates with the whole platform. Unlike competing products which claim to provide micro blogging functionality just by implementing user status updates, Socialtext provides the full microblogging package with different message streams, direct (private) messages and “mentions”. Especially useful is the tight integration with the wiki service which allows users to communicate page edits. Socialtext underlines its commitment to ease of use within Signals by enabling auto-forward-typing for colleague names. With the release of version 4.6 comes an integration of Signals with Lotus Sametime and the Microsoft Office Communicator. As already mentioned, however, basic functionalities like forums and rating of content are missing.
	Socialtext was one of the first vendors to understand the importance of workspaces for companies. Though it is easy to set them up, the product does not allow to hierarchically structure them. Access control can only be configured on the workspace level but administrators may lock down certain pages so that users won’t be able to edit them. Groups can be set up privately or public and be added to workspaces, although they are not linked with them afterwards. Socialtext is based on a wiki and designed for ease of use which users can experience when using the Rich Text Editor (RIT) or wiki page version compare. Although the file management in Socialtext has been improved it still lacks behind what other solutions offer. A positive innovation is “SocialCalc”, a plugin which enables users to create spreadsheet wiki pages. The functionality is decent for browser based spreadsheet manipulation and entirely solves the “table-mess” in wiki pages.
	Networking and Expert Search is not in the focus of Socialtext, but the product provides the basis for it. Every user has a profile page which looks like a dashboard and contains a member’s contact information, activity stream, “colleagues” and workspaces. “Colleagues” is a widget which contains two lists, one with people who are following the user and the other with people the user is following. The easy to start-and-stop one-way following mechanism (compare Twitter) is very handy since it enables users to configure an update stream which displays the activities of all personally relevant persons in their organization. Socialtext enables profile-tagging. However, the fact that anybody can add and remove tags is critical. Profiles do indicate some organizational structure enabling people to display their manager or assistant’s name, but the network visualization is limited to a follower list and does not include an organizational hierarchy.
	The highlights for Personal Information Management in Socialtext are the user dashboard and excellent RSS support. Each user has a personal dashboard which can be customized with widgets. Due to the fact that the Open Social standard is supported the iGoogle gadget directory can be used which includes more than 200k widgets. While most of those are probably futile, the standard set of widgets with Outlook, Twitter and Delicious integration is useful across the board and administrators can simplify dashboard use by predefining (and locking) a set of widgets for new users. In combination with the RSS feeds which are available for every wiki-page, user’s activity streams and search results, the RSS Viewer widget is the most helpful. It allows users to centrally organize all personally relevant information from the social software platform and the internet. Though not out of the box designed, a personal workspace could be set up for each user to serve as a virtual notebook. Bookmarking is not available within Socialtext.
	When it comes to Project Management, Socialtext lacks basic features like task lists or an easy workflow management. Anyway, some functionalities can be realized via workarounds: A page watcher bot monitors pages and posts alerts and notifications as Signals. It is possible to set up an individual workspace as a project collaboration platform. It can be enriched with a project blog and the project outline can be shared on a wiki-page. These wiki-pages can be built easily using the Form Builder, a tool box for fast page creation combining specific sets. Furthermore, the project communication can be enhanced using the integrated microblogging service Signals. Nevertheless, proper Project Management is not supported.

Socialtext – Technology and Product

	Socialtext has a good understanding of what companies need. This is why they offer different options to run the platform from standard SaaS or SaaS hosted on a dedicated appliance to an on-premise appliance installation (behind the corporate firewall). The software is programmed in Perl and runs on Linux/Unix systems. With the recent release, the developers realized some changes in architecture: A switch from an Apache to a Starman webserver came along with a backport integreation in SQL-database for extended backup features. Socialtext is primarily used in the English speaking world, but has been localized in six Languages, including Japanese, French, Italian and German. Mobile access is possible with iPhones, Blackberrys and Android phones. Socialtext offers light integration through connectors to Microsoft SharePoint and Lotus Connections.
	Socialtext comes with a CSS kit for customizing, which enables administrators to adjust the appearance of the social software platform to corporate design. The web oriented architecture of the software and the REST/SOAP/Perl-APIs allow IT departments to integrate Socialtext into the corporate IT landscape (e.g. the Microsoft OCS) and extend the provided functionality. The user dashboard, which is compliant with the OpenSocial standard, allows users to personalize their starting page with a, from release to release, growing number of widgets, including some dedicated for Socialtext-use and other external widgets for example Twitter or from the iGoogle gadget directory. Socialtext offers an open source version of its product and provides a workspace for the developer community on http://www.socialtext.net/open. Besides the activity in the workspace, the developer blog receives updates in a one-to-two week cycle.
	Socialtext integrates with most of the existing LDAP and Single Sign On-Solutions. Additionally, it provides an On-premise appliance option. On a workspace level, access can be defined as either just private (only invited users) or public with a number of nuances (read, write, comment - allowed or prohibited). In addition, administrators can lock down certain pages so that users cannot edit the content which is convenient for workspace critical pages like an overview starting page. User management can be controlled by adding/removing people from groups, the ability to manage user access rights individually provides added value. Content backup and restoration is handled automatically.
	In 2011 Gartner confirmed seeing Socialtext as a visionary vendor, because of their in-depth understanding of social software in an enterprise context. The company has a good market position and is growing in numbers of customers and product line. Despite being one of the first enterprise social software vendors, the company is still relatively small (50 Employees). The company is privately held, venture capital backed and has a high quality advisory board including Clay Shirky and David Weinberger. Though being very active in marketing, there is no publicly available strategy or product roadmap. The company has a big customer base including big names likes DHL, Warner Brothers, WeightWatchers and Intel Corp., Austin Peay University and a number of large-scale deployments. New product updates are released frequently, with a focus on new features rather than enhancing core functionality or bug-fixing.
	Socialtext rather tries to handle implementation and consulting services by themselves and only cooperates with a few partners. Being a small company, this approach seems to overload their capacities at times, so customers have reported positive and negative experiences in dealing with the company, especially with Socialtext support. Though Socialtext has stated that more partnerships will be announced in short time, customers are still not satisfied with the difficulties in getting direct access to developers or consultants. On their website, visitors get a good overview of the product with many webcasts and some whitepapers on best practice. The online documentation is very user friendly and customers can exchange experience in a dedicated Socialtext online workspace. Software updates are released on a monthly basis, but have been reported to cause trouble in seamless operation at times.

one comment for “Socialtext 4.7.5”

Socialtext 4.7.5 updated | SocialSoftwareMatrix.org on 20. October 2011 11:53

[...] reviewed the actual version of Socialtext and updated our evaluation. Not too many differences occured, but the tool is still a strong [...]

Tools

Socialtext 4.7.5

Socialtext - Use Cases

Socialtext – Technology and Product

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