According to Nielsen, there are reportedly 57.3 million mobile users in the United States. And as Jessica Tsai reported earlier last month,  two-thirds of today’s companies have expressed the intent to deploy mobile applications to extend business operations.  Given those statistics, the future of mobile is now.

For those reasons and to expand its reach in the collaboration software market, enterprise 2.0 vendor Socialtext has released a new version of its mobile software. The company, perhaps best known for bringing Twitter-like status functionality to the enterprise, is now allowing customers to access its collaboration software via the Web on their smartphones. According to Socialtext President, Chairman, and Co-founder Ross Mayfield (a recent recipient of CRM Magazine’s 2009 Influential Leader award), the Socialtext Mobile platform capitalizes on the following capabilities:

1. Microblogging,
2. Activity Streams,
3. Social Networking, and
4. Collaboration with content through Workspaces.

Socialtext Mobile is available for all customers at no extra cost. “In terms of mobile design, it’s making the choices of what not to include, make it simple yet effective and how do you make sure you’ve done a  mobile application that’s designed for speed and for the different usage patterns that people have,” Mayfield says. He adds that the decision to host the application via the Web made a lot more sense. For users running the application behind the firewall, they have the ability to leverage Motoroloa’s Good Mobile Connection to provide additional secure transport to the Socialtext software.

With its Free 50! promotion, Socialtext is offering a free trial version of its software online for up to 50 users. Those who sign up will also be able to log into Socialtext Mobile without cost.

A few minutes ago I was reminded of something powerful said at the 140 Character Conference in New York a few weeks back:

“If you are careful of who you follow, they can read the Web for you and direct you to the news you should read,” said Patrick LaForge, the director of copy desks for The New York Times, during a compelling panel about Twitter’s impact on the news.

I’m sitting here reeling with just how true that statement has become. I’m a fairly active Twitter participant. My followers and following rests in the 700 range. Although every once in awhile I go through to “clean up shop” and remove a few follows that annoy me, I believe my Twitter circle is a valuable source of knowledge. I’m realizing that nowadays, when I want news, I no longer go to Google news or even my Yahoo! homepage like I once did. Instead, I head straight for Twitter, knowing my friends have my back and will keep me informed about the news I will be interested in.

OK — That’s the end to my Twitter rave (for now…). The real reason I created this post was to share with you some of the valuable links I came across just minutes ago on my Twitter stream. Rather than rewrite already excellent stories, I will point you to the original pieces:

• Social media analyst Peter Kim has accumulated a superb list of social media marketing examples. From major commercial brands to tech vendors, Kim catalogues interesting marketing cases — from YouTube videos to corporate blogs. This extensive list must have taken forever to assemble. Thanks for a great resource, Peter.
• Ever heard of astroturfing? It ain’t pretty. Our good friend Marshall Lager blogs about the nasty practice of using false testimonials to give the impression of customer satisfaction. A cosmetic surgery company, Lifestyle Lift was recently slapped with fraud charges for its astroturfing efforts. Whatever happened to that thing called transparency?
• The enterprise 2.0/collaboration software market is populating by the minute. With so many vendors on the rise, it’s hard to keep straight who’s got what, who’s going where, and who’s worth paying attention to. The folks at ZDNet put forth a Map of the 2009 Enterprise 2.0 Marketplace that answers those questions and then some.
• I came across multiple Tweets regarding this video where Seth Godin speaks frankly on the use of social networking and business. “The Internet is this giant cocktail party,” Godin says. “What matters is where are the real relationships.” He states that networking is important only when it’s real — It’s a useless distraction when it’s fake. “The Internet has allowed an enormous amount of fake networking to take place and it’s so easy to be seduced by it,” Godin says. “If you are measuring it, it doesn’t mean anything.” What do you think? What percentage of your social networking relationships are real and what percentage are fake?

That’s it for now. I’m sure if I continue following my Twitter stream, this list could go on and on. Thanks to the above people for the links — And thanks to my Twitter crew for continually keeping me in the loop.

-@laurenmizzou

Wendy Lea

Meet Wendy Lea, the new CEO of Web 2.0 customer service site, Get Satisfaction. Lea brings a breadth of knowledge to Get Satisfaction — a former VP of marketing for Siebel and then an angel investor, Lea seems to understand what makes enterprises tick. She will be taking over the chief operating role for Thor Muller, one of the founders of the company. Muller will continue on as chief technology officer for Get Sat.

I had the opportunity to pick Lea’s brain a bit this week. She was a great sport considering she is only two weeks into the new gig. Here’s a snippet of our conversation:

CRM: What’s the transition been like so far?

Lea: Fun. It’s all good. You know the success we have had on the consumer side. Mid-last year, company sign-ups have really punched there. We’ve got an average of 75 [companies] coming in a day. We have a total of 12,000 in the system. Some are long tail. Some are big, big brands. It’s a fun time for us even with all the craziness around the company. The value proposition is strong because it is about reducing costs and getting closer to the customer.

CRM: So what’s on tap next for Get Satisfaction?

Lea: The trick is finding the right feature set and price points so we can maintain a good set of self-service customers and address what I would call the high-end professional customers, which, for them, is more about integration with their own sites and with CRM systems and with the community systems that they have already purchased. They want us on the front end to create communities and push feedback through and push through their customer service solution sets.

We aren’t a whole product. There is no one whole product. Because of the economic aspect and the consumer sensitivity that we create for companies, it seems — keep in mind, I’m only on week two — that the bigger brands, in particular, that allow themselves to take part are keen to re-engage. They are not just saying “come to our site” but are listening. And for some, we are their sole customer service solution. Read the rest of this entry »

Social CRM has invaded the conference scene. I can’t seem to get away from the topic — And I don’t want to. It’s fascinating and frankly, quite exciting. Last week at Gartner Web Innovation and Web Portals, Content, and Collaboration, enterprise 2.0 worked itself into quite a number of sessions. It comes as no surprise that Oracle OpenWorld is giving a shout-out to Social CRM, too. 

Oracle’s Anthony Lye gave an “unplugged” session with the press this morning, reviewing the vendors social CRM standpoint. More on Oracle’s social apps to come. (I smell a destinationCRM.com story in the works). Oracle seems to have its eye on the prize when it comes to integrating enterprise data with social networking applications. 

Throughout my travels, I have had some pretty interesting conversations revolving around the social Web and what social networking means for business. Most conference attendees I have come across seem to be very in tune with what’s going on. However, I did have lunch with some people last week who went on and on about the evils of Facebook. Both were IT workers for fairly large companies and both had blocked Facebook, MySpace and Flickr from employees. I nearly gasped when I heard this. “You’ve got it all wrong!” I wanted to shout. 

Blocking Facebook will inevitably drive your employees to another social site because let’s face it, there’s no way to avoid Enterprise 2.0. If you block Facebook, shouldn’t you also block Wordpress and Blogger? Those are both social Web sites. What about Amazon or Digg? My point is, there’s no clear distinction when it comes to social networking. While Facebook might not be as relevant of a marketing tool for a financial firm as it is for say, an entertainment business, it’s still possible to gain business benefits from it. Take, for example, another conversation I had last night with a PR exec. He said he can barely deal with email anymore. His inbox gets so bogged down, if people really want to reach him, write on his Facebook wall.  

According to an Avanade white paper, which is an IT consultancy based on Microsoft technologies, with research provided by Coleman Parkes, 58 percent of companies agree that senior managers do not understand the potential that social networking offers both for employees and customers. This disconnect is a real problem, but with software vendors diving into social networking, hopefully the value will come to light for disbelievers. 

**Bonus points for anyone who can tell me in what movie the phrase “get socialized” is referenced.

**Speaking of social apps, if you haven’t checked out Josh Weinberger’s tweeting from OpenWorld, you must do so. The man doesn’t eat. He doesn’t sleep. He tweets.