Content management software vendors eye social networking
Summary: Content management software vendors are pondering social networking features and are expected to collaborate or acquire so-called white label networks to make their enterprise apps more social.That's one of the takeaways from Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Forrester.
Content management software vendors are pondering social networking features and are expected to collaborate or acquire so-called white label networks to make their enterprise apps more social.
That's one of the takeaways from Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Forrester.
Owyang's working theory is that the big enterprise content management software (CMS) vendors--EMC's Documentum, Interwoven, Vignette, Stellent etc--are leaving money on the table by not offering social networking features. Meanwhile, there are more than 90 companies offering white label social networking infrastructure branded as something else (see Jeremy's roster of players). At some point these two categories of vendors will meet:
With the demand and buzz for social network features, or community offerings, these established CMS/Portal vendors recognize the demand, and see opportunity dollars falling through the cracks. I've started conversations with several of the big players to gauge where they are headed. Of course, the conversations don't end up on this blog (unless they give me permission, or publish first) but it's quite obvious where things are headed.
In other words, social networking will become a generic enterprise feature at some point. These CMS players can develop their own community suites (and hire staff that understands the social types), acquire white label networks or just hang back.
Of those options door No. 2 sounds like the most logical outcome.
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However, it's early in this effort and it's unclear how it will play out. For instance, Owyang notes that the CMS vendors may not be able to combine social features with their legacy apps.I'd add another: It's unclear whether workers will actually use enterprise social networking features. Clearly, these CMS meets social networking systems won't be as cool as Facebook and it's highly likely the meld of legacy apps will create a clunky experience. Meanwhile, participation isn't guaranteed. If folks don't use these apps there's no community. Participation has thrown a monkey wrench into many great enterprise software waves--just ask CIOs about all those dormant knowledge management systems installed a few years ago.
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Social Content Management is alive and kicking
We started with an advantage which is that for the past ten years our software has been used to drive advanced community and media sites with live publishing, dynamic targeted page rendering and a highly granular security system.
The biggest challenges in squaring the circle for Web 1.0 and 2.0 was to develop the appropriate social content management workflows, as well as the networking and media management interfaces. The real-world use of our platform also highlighted that being able to lock down the user interfaces and enable more functionality on-the-fly as the community becomes more established and mature is the key to getting the appropriate level of user interaction.
Having made the transition to a Social Marketplace platform all aspects of content management, networking and user interaction can be monetised. As a result 80% of our new business involves some level of user generated media, content and transactions.
It is hard to see how commercial CMS companies which haven't made the transition will succeed over the coming years, it is also clear (at least to us) that buying and bolting on technologies will be a multi-year process to deliver the synergies and features required by an ever more demanding market.
RE: Content management software vendors eye social networking
RE: Content management software vendors eye social networking
they leverage "inbound marketing" if they do not? The
question is how? The tough part of that question is -
like social media marketing strategy - the needs
probably vary substantially from company to company.
The obstacles that companies face are not necessarily
obvious. At Oshyn, Inc, we are very interested to know
what challenges companies face in their online
marketing with social media. By knowing this we can
find ways for the CMS to resolve those issues which
often might be client-specific.
RE: Content management software vendors eye social networking