As they mature, social networks are increasingly becoming viable systems for information management. We’re seeing this with Facebook, and with FriendFeed and even to some extent with Twitter. The combination of social graph plus information is a powerful one. And that’s exactly why CubeTree wants to port that idea over to the enterprise world.
CubeTree’s new enterprise collaboration suite, which is opening to the public tomorrow, has a familiar look: It looks like a cross between Facebook and FriendFeed (more-so before they were both recently redesigned). And that familiarity is part of the idea to getting this to work on the enterprise level. As with other social networks, there are two main components to CubeTree: The Feed and the Profile. But on CubeTree’s feed, instead of seeing updates from everyone in your social graph, you see updates from coworkers. And on your profile page, rather than highlighting pictures or videos of yourself, there is an emphasis on information and documents.
CubeTree co-founders Carlin Wiegner (also CEO) and Ross Fubini (also CTO), both formerly with Symantec, recently gave me a walk-through of their product. It’s impressive both in look and feel and scope. They’ve done a great job taking the best parts of the social networks I’ve mentioned above, and putting them into CubeTree with more of a business spin. And I think a lot of businesses may be receptive to that because a lot of their employees have already been trained to use social networks of this ilk, something which Wiegner also pointed out. And in huge companies (the biggest one CubeTree is currently testing with has about 100,000 employees), a network like this can give an employee a face.
As you can see in the screenshots, CubeTree places a large emphasis on the micro-updates, just like Twitter. The rationale behind this is that there are often things people maybe want others to know, but don’t want to send out an email to everyone in the company, as Fubini notes. With status updates, employees can give passive updates to coworkers which show up in their stream throughout the day. But that’s not all that goes into the feed, like FriendFeed (and now Facebook), CubeTree can import elements from other social services such as Google Reader shared items, TripIt trips, Salesforce data and others. And just like FriendFeed (and again, now Facebook), anyone can now comment on these items in the feed.
But lest you think CubeTree is just a straight knock-off of Facebook/FriendFeed/Twitter for enterprise, there are also several other more unique things it offers. For example, users can upload and share documents, set up goals, set up trip information, create Wiki pages for the company and even create company quizes for others to take. The last one is not what it sounds like, it’s not meant to test others aptitude, but rather fun exercises to get to know your follow coworkers. For example, you may ask a question like “FILL IN THE BLANK loves their iPhone the most.” Other employees then fill in their answers. “People love playing this game,” Wiegner says, noting that it wasn’t originally intended to be used exactly like that.
CubeTree also offers a powerful search option to look for things across the network — particularly handy for documents. And there is a “track” option, just like Twitter used to have to alert you when some key word is said. Almost everyone immediately tracks their names, Wiegner and Fubini joked.
It’s important to note that social relationships within CubeTree are much like they are on Twitter. That is to say rather than having to friend someone and have them friend you back, you can simply follow anyone in the company you wish. That seems a bit odd since this is an internal company product, so it would seem reasonable that everyone should follow everyone else, but CubeTree wants to make sure users have options still within the company as to how they want to interact with the product.
Seeing as CubeTree runs entirely in the cloud, security is an obvious concern, but Wiegner and Fubini, who again both came from Syamantec, placed an emphasis on security from day one and note that CubeTree has passed many leading security tests. That was apparently enough to get at least a few Fortune 500 companies to sign up to test the product out. Right now, the product is being tested with about 100 companies ranging in size from 20 people to 100,000, Wiegner says.
There are quite a few competitors to various parts of CubeTree, but the company is convinced that it has the most comprehensive offering across the board. For example, Yammer does the micro messaging aspect for businesses, but doesn’t have all of the other social elements. Then there’s the enterprise wiki work that Socialtext leads the field in, but it too doesn’t have all the other elements.
As for pricing, CubeTree has three tiers. The first is the free product which is called “Standard” and offers a company unlimited accounts that are limited to 10 megabytes of storage. The step up from that is “Group,” which for $3 per user per month offers 1 GB of storage and improved security. The third tier is “Enterprise,” which at $5 per user per month offers the best security, storage and management options. One nice thing about the bottom two tiers is that they’re compatible. So basically if you don’t want to buy all your employees the Group package, you can mix between Standard and Group. But if you want to upgrade to Enterprise, your whole network must be running it. There are bulk discounts though over 500 users.
CubeTree was founded in 2008 with a seed round by Mitch Kapor and Trinity Ventures. It raised an undisclosed first round in April and will likely look for another round at the end of this year or beginning of next, according to Wiegner.
It would be awkward if you got fired from a company while using this service.
maybe you can change your status to ‘it’s complicated’
but yes, that would be a bit awkward.
put a script on the status message as alert(’test’) and you will have fun…
Another bland and uninspired UI.
I hate creating “yet” another new profiles over and over. It is annoying especially when they could have easily used API’s from any three sites or even used Linkedin to import their profile.
Plus either traffic or something, but a lot of things on the site is not working.
Correction 1: I hate creating “yet” another new profile (not profiles)
Correction 2: Plus either traffic or something, but a lot of things on the site (are) not working
This is what happens when I post without coffee (or sex) in the morning.
Masturbation isn’t sex mate
App looks great. I’ve been using Yammer for a while and have been loving it, but we use it with two or three other apps. This does everything all under one roof.
what other apps do you use?
does this count as a post about twitter?
I just KNEW someone would ask that
I vote no. I only mention it as having one similar feature so it’s easy for readers to understand.
Personally, I want to see MORE twitter posts.
I agree. Twitter is a hot topic
Here’s my $8 contribution to your happiness
http://crunchtweet.com
CrunchTweet!
Ha Ha … as soon as I saw this post, I looked at the time if it was past 12
.
I was wondering why there wasn’t a SN for Enterprise yet. Good Post.
No. There are equal number of references for Facebook, FriendFeed and Twitter in the post
Good job TC.
This is interesting in that I’ve seen lots of cobbleware that purports to to these Facebooky things. At one point, I think they were called groupware in a pre-ajaxy world.
Has there been any more coverage by TC of Cisco Eos?
http://www.cisc...msg/social.html
Indeed, Cisco launched a own social site outside of their walls as well (vs. drinking their own champagne)
https://www.myc...ocommunity.com/
(hosted by Jive)
interesting, though my security cert apparently won’t let me on myciscocommunity
Same here.
Nice.
If you could post a screenshot on Flickr that would be neato. There have been issues with Jive in the past that I’ve documented for this marketing oriented side.
http://www.flic...ell/3390172655/
Can you get into Cisco Learning?
https://cisco.h...vesoftware.com/
You know how to add that security cert to your browsers exception list? If not, what are you doing at techcrunch?
i could see something like this being valuable for blog networks. easy way to keep the team up to date and on top of new trends.
Interesting to see apps like this coming up for enterprises to leverage the power of social media for productivity.
Just signed up for their free account… I found it very user friendly and was up in no time cruising around comfortably.
My question is, what’s the take-away from all the chatter? Will there be filters? A way to measure ideas, trends, topics, etc…? How do you make all this (possibly) important information actionable so that it’s of true value to an enterprise?
This will help isolate, document, and display just how annoying Robert in accounting really is with metrics that can be graphed in real time on the corporate dashboard.
Agreed Mark.
If you can get all the social features: Blogs, Profiles, Microsharing PLUS business process specific features (ideas/innovation, hr, crm,…), why would you go for a generic/horizontal system.
Every generation of silicon valley seems to forget niche focus creates value. Trying to be all things to all people has failed again and again.
What existing “job” does this horizontal/generic platform help you do? What is it specifically designed to do?
Its UI looks like a cleaner copy of Facebook
First it was corporate intranet, then corporate wiki, then corporate blog, then corporate social network (an oxymoron) and now coprorate microblogging.
Who’s keeping score?
People like this dude
http://www.forr...Jeremiah_Owyang
Deadpool. Eighteen months.
looks interesting and user friendly…twitter inspiration
Virtually trade twitter and make profit on
http://www.webm...com/twittercom/
Like it but would still like a packaged solution for within the firewall usage. I recently wrote about FriendFeed for enterprises, http://bit.ly/3BImz
Checking out CubeTree and looks very good. Still does not integrate email. No enterprise service would be complete without the grand daddy of communication. Also, someone should concentrate on conversation and not broadcasting alone. Also conversation does not mean @reply. Enterprise communication is always focused on context.
Who wants to externalize its company’s inside chatter? This is their (and Yammers) biggest obstacle.
but… it’s not externalizing chatter. Sounds like each company has a private network.
Talk about vendor lock in ….Just like twitter and the rest….The only way to keep control of your companies content as well as ongoing cost is to use Open Source….There are a lot of open source offerings that do what cubetree does…..one of them is elgg….
Seems good and interesting. The interface looks like friendfeed.
CubeTree has impressed me on this one. My peer registered as my follower. Before getting a email for this event, The site added this follower in my list, in real time. The first such thing for me to see.
Another wonderful feature : Feedback to Cubetree for new features. I am pasting my first comment. Also, internal voting like "Employee of the month"
wow, it looks like facebook itself.
Surprised no one mentioned SocialText here… they are just as easily as usable and functional.
Anything to get the conversation and information stream out in the open and out of email is good.
Companies communicating internally in this way will be refreshing and create a life, timeline, and historical view of everything that happened.
Being able to capture a moment in time and what people were up to in this way rather than time tracking, oversight bloat and closed managers will be great.
Intranet 4all?
The app is really slow!
Hope they can move to a better hosting environment.
Why are they only charging $3-8 user/mo. where Salesforce charge up to $200 user/mo?
ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
fdvfdfbgfbgfbgfbgfbgfbgfbgfbgfbfgbgfbgfbgfbgfgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
bgfbgfbgfbgfbgfbgfb
gfb
gfb
gf
bgf
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbgf
bgf
b
gfb
gf
bgf
bgf
“The third tier is “Enterprise,” which at $5 per user per month offers the best security, storage and management options.”
That is steep.
I agree any social app at the enterprise level without integration with corporate mail. They could buy Xobni and merge with them that would give them the leverage at the mail integration along with social touch.
Let me see if I can convince my BOSS to let me social network during office hours
I cannot help but think this is a perfect example of technology that decreases productivity.
Even if I consider an organization where everyone works remotely . . . what’s wrong with Google’s email threading and video chat offering (for example).
As a manager/CEO, I’ve found myself fall into the trap of using technology for technologies sake, instead of simply getting on the phone, pulling people in as needed, and (gasp) “talking”.
I’m no luddite, but we don’t need to social-appetize *everything*