Socialtext Adds Task Manager, Contact Matching

Top 10 Mobile Apps For Business Collaboration

After Socialtext introduced its Socialtasks task manager module this week, the next task on the social software vendor's list was announcing a partnership with introNetworks on integrating its contact recommendation engine.

Enterprise 2.0

The announcements on Monday and Tuesday at Enterprise 2.0 Boston, a UBM TechWeb event, add to Socialtext's enterprise social platform.

Socialtasks is a flexible project management system, meant to be tightly wedded to social collaboration. For example, the Socialtasks Page Tacker widget can be embedded in social content items such as a wiki page, a group discussion home page, or the Socialtext Dashboard. The Page Tracker shows tasks as "New," "In Progress," or "Complete"--or any user-defined status. Users also can configure a Page Watcher Bot to monitor the status of a task and post a microblogging message when the status changes. Socialtasks also includes a Form Builder tool that can be used to impose structure on a page, with choices for status, priority, owner, and other fields, as an alternative to free-form wiki page creation.

"Socialtext is the enterprise social platform where people go to get their work done--where as with other enterprise social networks you merely talk about doing work," quipped Eugene Lee, Socialtext's CEO, in a statement. "With Socialtasks, we want to help teams track the progress of tasks and projects they're working on together, without imposing too much rigidity since every business is different."

Socialtext will be demonstrating Socialtasks during Enterprise 2.0 and plans to release it to all customers in the third quarter.

In addition, Socialtext said it will create a new product offering based on an integration with introNetworks, which provides a contact recommendation engine similar to the friend and contact suggestions on Facebook and LinkedIn. Also slated for availability in the third quarter, this feature will allow Socialtext users to connect with other employees who share their interests and search for other users with specific expertise.

Socialtext said it is already working with some joint introNetworks customers, such as the marketing communications company McCann Worldwide, on beta implementations of this integration. McCann CIO Greg Smith said in a statement that the combination "will serve as a catalyst in our ability to build stronger teams and harness more of our intellectual capital faster."

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