Socialtext is creating new ways for business staffs to collaborate online through enterprise social software.
The Palo Alto, Calif., group was founded in 2002 as a Wiki company, but it has evolved into a “much broader social software platform,” Ross Mayfield, the company’s chairman, president and co-founder, says in this video.
Socialtext still has that Wiki component, but mixed in now are a set of collaborative tools that include a healthy Twitter option, Mayfield says.
The company’s latest offering is something called SocialCalc — a dynamic spreadsheet application with a large splash of Wiki collaboration, says Mayfield.
The product is different in many ways from Google docs spreadsheets, he says.
“What we’ve done with SocialCalc is to give people the things that people like about working on Wikis — the easy access to editing, the ability to leverage a link structure, a tag structure — that you’d have in a work space,” says Mayfield. Those components are coupled with the ability to work across multiple spread sheets tied together so that data can be automatically “rolled up.” he says.
SocialCalc was developed in collaboration with Dan Bricklin who co-developed VisiCalc 30 years ago. The first spreadsheet program for personal computers is credited with being the “killer app” that launched the personal computing revolution, according to the Socialtext Web site.
Mayfield also elaborates on the effect of social media on the business workplace, challenges to the adaptation of new software and how workers’ expectations for software is changing because of their personal experiences.
Links relevant to this video include:
Socialtext Web site — http://www.socialtext.com
