Microsoft’s Outlook As a Social Hub?
Many folks like to talk about how anything labeled a Microsoft web strategy is an oxymoron considering the company’s less than stellar track record in the online world. That doesn’t mean that they will stop trying though. In an apparent attempt to ensure that they are seen as relevant in the social space the software giant is bringing some new friends into its ubiquitous Outlook product. Those friends are Facebook, MySpace and Linkedin. While it appears that Facebook is virtually everywhere it is quite interesting to see MySpace making some positive news these days. From a pure business play LinkedIn makes sense.
Microsoft Corp. is taking another step toward turning Outlook, its desktop e-mail program, into a hub for information from popular social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
On Wednesday, Microsoft is releasing a “beta” test version of the Outlook Social Connector. The add-on software, which was first discussed last November, adds a new pane to the main e-mail reading screen on Outlook. When a user clicks to read an e-mail message, the new pane fills up with the sender’s most recent social-networking activities. Those could include the addition of a professional contact on LinkedIn or a “what I’m doing now” status update from Facebook.
I don’t know about you but the pace of social networking / media / marketing announcements can be dizzying . What’s even harder to consider is just how many of these options one person can actually use. Not to mention just how excited employers must be to see their employee’s inbox at work become another place to be distracted from doing that pesky work thing.
Will Kennedy, a corporate vice president for the Office group, said some of Microsoft’s business customers have expressed concern that employees will become less productive if they have all this extra information at their fingertips.
“We don’t want this to sort of be the next great time waster in the workplace,” he said.
That’s awful thoughtful of Microsoft to worry about workplace productivity but it’s hard not to imagine this won’t happen. Microsoft is spinning it by saying that the social part of it will increase productivity and that there are business related networking features that will increase productivity as well.
Microsoft’s new software also treats Outlook itself as a social network. If the e-mail sender and recipient are jointly working on a document stored on a company’s Sharepoint server, both will see updates if one logs on to make edits
One thing that may actually take the social out of this social networking tool is that there will not be capability to push updates back out to Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. So, I suppose it’s social in a “one way conversation” kinda way.
People using Office 2003, 2007 and beta versions of Office 2010 can download the updated Outlook Social Connector beta Wednesday. LinkedIn, which is primarily used for business networking online, is the first company to make its add-in software available. It can be downloaded from LinkedIn.com.
All I can say is good luck getting anything done while you are keeping tabs on everyone else who is not getting anything done.
Ning Rings VC Bell Again
With all of the talk regarding social media it seems that the inordinate amount of the attention goes to the big 2; Facebook and Twitter. While they do tend to generate significant drama and even some real news there is more to the social media space. In fact, there are those who see the social media universe fragmenting into very specific verticals so those of like mind can gather online without having to see that your friend just had a great breath of air. There’s got to be more right?
One of the biggest ‘sideline’ players in this space is Ning. They are doing very well despite some recent decline in numbers. They are doing so well that they picked up some more VC investment. The amount of the investment is not the focus, however, as pointed out over at AllThingsD. It’s the valuation that the investment is based on, which is a hefty $750 million. Not bad for getting just a small percentage of the attention that social media gets in the online press. For the uninitiated here is an overview of the company
Ning is working in a different corner of the social media space than the others
Ning is a platform aimed at offering customizable tools that lets users create their social networks about their interests, such as for fans of the movie “Twilight.”
Ning puts online ads on the sites, using Google (GOOG), and is also working on its own advertising platform. It also offers an array of other services and is planning more soon, such as a virtual gift offering.
Founded in early 2007, it currently has 29.3 million registered users, using 1.3 million social networks, and it adding one million registered users every 15 days, said the company.
Despite the positive news of investment interestTechCrunch reports
In the U.S., unique visitors actually declined 10 percent from May, 2009 to June, 2009, according to comScore. Ning had 5.1 million visitors in the U.S. in June (its worldwide audience is about three times as large).
The company attributes the decline to “some downtime in June as we expand and optimize our infrastructure to support the growth that we are expecting in the next 12 months.” Ning says it is adding 4,000 new Ning Networks every day and one million registered users every 15 days.
Ning lands this relatively small investment while it wasn’t even seeking more. Having Lightspeed Venture Partners on board, however, makes the roster of investors more impressive as the folks at Ning continue to grow their business. that can carry some value later on when they may actually look for money intentionally.
What is your experience with Ning? Do you have any experience at all with the service? What place does a service like Ning truly have? Ning CEO Gina Bianchini says that “We want to be the social network for interests and passions online.” Are there ways one can express passions online without such a service? Give us your passionate thoughts on the subject.
