OfficeTalk - learning what it means

I am intrigued by Microsoft's latest offering: Office Talk developed by Office Labs - (Exploring the impact of social networking in the Enterprise) - so I am interested to read comments key punters:

• ReadWriteWeb - "looks almost identical to Twitter" - "Microsoft is pretty late to the market with OfficeTalk. Socialtext, Socialcast, Yammer"
• Mashable - "Put simply, the software lets company members take part in discussions relevant to the workplace. Unlike other solutions, OfficeTalk is hosted within the customer’s organization, which could be a boon for those ultra concerned about privacy."
• CMSWire - "the service is an on-premise utility (meaning it would live on a server inside a corporate firewall, much like SharePoint) that allows co-workers and teammates to swap messages of 140 characters or less. Each user has their very own page which looks much like a Twitter user page with a personal image, title and brief bio. You can search for other users inside your company and subscribe to their messages. Also, users can view the "Company View" which shows all messages sent out throughout a company or organization. This feature might be noisy but could also spawn some fascinating conversations across business units inside the enterprise."
• CMSWire - more on Office Talk - "“applies the base capabilities of microblogging to a business environment." It does this by "enabling employees to post their thoughts, activities, and potentially valuable information to anyone who might be interested.”
• CMSWire - more - " attempts to squeeze in next to solutions like Twitter by allowing employees to collaborate and share their thoughts on a 140 character limit - Much like a Yammer and Twitter mashup, OfficeTalk has all the features you'd expect from such a solution: 
  
  • 140 character limit
  • Profiles
  • Follow option
  • Search
  • Threaded conversations

 

 

In many organisations, microblogging with Twitter or Yammer behind the firewall is just not an option. So a Microsoft microblogging option is going to be regarded with huge interest by users if not the social media Rock Star crowd - pretty much like Sharepoint as an Enterprise 2.0 /Web 2.0 offering - not for the purists - but appreciated by those of us with no options.

Posted via web from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous