Enterprise Products with Q&A Baked-In
Bloomfire
Bloomfire differs from all the other vendors listed here in that it is a video-oriented solution. In this way, it could cross-over into our YouTubes for enterprise list. More specifically, Bloomfire is a social learning suite. Its customers include The Kellogg Company, Overstock.com and Lifesize (a division of Logitech).
One of the goals of Bloomfire is to develop learning resources that answer multiple questions. “If normal Q&A sites are a rifle, we’re a shotgun,” says CEO Josh Little. What he means is that using a typical Q&A tool you normally get a very specific answer to a very specific question. Bloomfire wants questions to serve as the springboard for users to share much more knowledge about a subject than a single answer. It prioritizes creative presentations that answer a several questions about a topic.
The use of video is one way to facilitate this. Although users can leave textual answers to questions, Little says most users are more comfortable just turning on a Web cam and speaking naturally than they are trying to craft a well thought-out written response.
MindTouch
MindTouch, an enterprise wiki geared towards developers crafting documentation, has a Q&A feature built-in. You can see it in action at the Complete Android Guide site.
Newsgator
Newsgator provides a suite of social features that run on top of Microsoft SharePoint, including Q&A, microblogging and idea management.
Pulse
Pulse is an enterprise microblogging platform from Neudesic. In addition to its core microblogging functionality, it features a Q&A section called Connect with Experts. Its Q&A capabilities are very similar to Quora’s. For example, users can vote answers up and down, or can ask questions of a specific individual. Like Newsgator, it can run as an add-on to SharePoint.
Socialcast
Socialcast started life as an enterprise microblogging tool, and added a Q&A feature earlier this year. Socialcast is, along with Qontext and SimplyBox, one a growing number of enterprise collaboration tools that can be embedded in existing applications. This means users can access activity streams, status updates and questions from the applications they already use every day. CEO Tim Young believes this will be the key to success for its Q&A feature. If users can both ask and answer questions from their standard applications, the tool has a better chance of being adopted and providing value. This helps solve part of the problem Opzi sees in terms of ingrained habits.
As for routing, Socialcast monitors your behavior when using the system to determine what your interests are -accounting or Ruby, for example. When someone asks a question that’s related to your interests, you’ll be notified. It also has topic sections that users can check manually or subscribe to.
Yammer
When Yammer launched its new social platform last year, expanding beyond its microblogging roots, it added a Questions app that gives users basic Q&A functionality.
Pages: 1 2
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.