BroadVision Enhances Its Enterprise Social Networking Platform
BroadVision, a provider of e-business and social networking solutions, rolled out several new features for its Clearvale enterprise social networking platform at the Digital London Summit Tuesday.
"It has taken B2B social networking much longer to take hold, since there are many different groups that are involved," notes Richard Hughes, director of product strategy at BroadVision. "We want to make it easier for companies to collaborate with others, like their suppliers and customers."
BroadVision's software previously only allowed users to create enterprise social networks within Clearvale that were devoted exclusively to employees, or to customers or partners. The software now includes the capability to create hybrid networks using new features called Guest, Zones, and Conduits.
The Guest feature lets administrators invite users from other organizations to a network or certain workspaces to collaborate on short-term projects. The Zones and Conduits features allow administrators to create collaborative workspaces that are public or private, respectively. Within both Zones and Conduits, participants can share and collaborate on files, blogs, creating Wikis, commenting on or rating content, and more.
BroadVision also added analytics features to Clearvale that allow companies to track and measure their employees' enterprise social network usage, and also establish goals or incentives to improve participation. Employees receive a "reputation" score that ranges from 0 to 10 and is based on activity, connectivity, and popularity measurements.
"There has been a lot of interest in developing clear business objectives for social networks. Companies want to know, 'Are employees really using it?'" Hughes says. "Now they can better understand what their employees are doing on these social networks and figure out where they can improve."
The upgrade also includes an integration with Microsoft SharePoint, an improved Task feature, and an updated mobile application for iPhones and iPads.