Mediaboss Marketing

19-03-2012 20:12 http://www.lockergnome.com - Every week (if not every day), people ask me if they should buy the new iPad (and that's been since before there was even a new new iPad). I know that I really like my iPad — but you might not. It really all depends on how you might like to use such a device. Could it make a good replacement for your laptop? Again, that's an answer that can vary from person to person. So, can an iPad really replace your laptop? Here are a few key usage areas to consider. You can watch the entire live TLDR episode here: youtu.be http://www.gnomies.com http http://www.lockergnome.com profiles.google.com twitter.com http://www.facebook.com

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Can iPad Replace Laptops? - Video

Although enterprise social networking (ESN) products that replicate Facebook-like and Twitter-like functionality for workplaces have been around for about five years, Microsoft sees a big opportunity in that market, to which some feel the maker of Windows and Office has been slow to respond.

The value of ESN is undeniable in enhancing employee collaboration and communication, but many ESN implementations have failed to deliver on their promise for various reasons, such as lack of integration with third-party business software and poorly planned deployments, a Microsoft official said.

Microsoft's approach will be to increase enterprise social features in SharePoint, as part of an integrated, organic collaboration platform that also includes Lync, Outlook and its Office productivity applications, said Jared Spataro, Microsoft's senior director of SharePoint product management.

"We believe social technologies will be incredibly important in transforming the way people interact with organizations. But we also think much of the discussion happening in the industry today, led by the pure play, standalone social vendors, is somewhat misguided," he said.

"Social shouldn't be implemented just for social's sake, but for business sake. It shouldn't just replicate Facebook for the enterprise, but rather focus very squarely on task completion, on helping people get their jobs done," Spataro added.

Spataro declined to give specifics about how this vision and strategy will be manifested in Microsoft collaboration products, but said that SharePoint has been gaining enterprise social features since its 2003 version, continued adding them in its 2007 and 2010 versions, and will pursue a "people-centric" model going forward.

"The first 10 years of SharePoint's life were very clearly focused on documents. It was a document-centric system. That's exactly what the industry wanted at the time," he said. "As we look towards the next 10 years of SharePoint, we want to maintain that document strength but we're also going to increasingly become a people-centric system."

Vendors like NewsGator have provided ESN capabilities to SharePoint for years, meeting the demand of customers who weren't satisfied with the native social collaboration features of the product.

"There have always been places where the partner ecosystem has been able to innovate faster than we have, so they produce solutions on top" of SharePoint, he said.

However, some like Forrester analyst Rob Koplowitz feel that Microsoft has been slow on the uptake.

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Microsoft Says SharePoint Isn't Late to Enterprise Social Networking

(AP) SEATTLE - When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password.

Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.

In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person's social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around.

"It's akin to requiring someone's house keys," said Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor who calls it "an egregious privacy violation."

Questions have been raised about the legality of the practice, which is also the focus of proposed legislation in Illinois and Maryland that would forbid public agencies from asking for access to social networks.

Since the rise of social networking, it has become common for managers to review publically available Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts and other sites to learn more about job candidates. But many users, especially on Facebook, have their profiles set to private, making them available only to selected people or certain networks.

Companies that don't ask for passwords have taken other steps -- such as asking applicants to friend human resource managers or to log in to a company computer during an interview. Once employed, some workers have been required to sign nondisparagement agreements that ban them from talking negatively about an employer on social media.

Asking for a candidate's password is more prevalent among public agencies, especially those seeking to fill law enforcement positions such as police officers or 911 dispatchers.

Back in 2010, Robert Collins was returning to his job as a security guard at the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services after taking a leave following his mother's death. During a reinstatement interview, he was asked for his login and password, purportedly so the agency could check for any gang affiliations. He was stunned by the request but complied.

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Job seekers asked to give Facebook passwords

Social media is more popular than ever, and so are viruses, malware and online scams. The chart below sheds some light upon how important it is for social networking users to stay on top of the basics of online security.

With even Ke$has Twitter account being hacked, one can never be too careful when it comes to social media security. Veracode application security testing platform has laid out a chart on the basics.

Some key points are that since social media exists in a cloud computing environment, it is more vulnerable than that of a traditional network, and the interconnective nature of social networks is an ideal setting for the propagation of malware. The chart adds that core distribution of malware is through social media sites, and tips are given for users to protect themselves.

Interestingly, the top 5 categories of Facebook spam are stalking, free stuff/games/Farmville, shocking curiosities, features not offered by Facebook and games not offered by Facebook.

The chart ends with the notion that, you dont have to avoid all forms of Social Media to be protected, but you do have to be aware of malware and scams. Educate employees as well on Social Media safety and best practices to reduce your companys risk from costly losses and identity theft.

Hat tip to Veracode.

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Social Media Security Basics Infographic

Wouldnt it be great if you could prove youre more valuable to your company than everyone else?

Thats the idea behind a new social networking tool from Saba, an outfit that makes human resources software. On Tuesday, the company will unveil yet another Tweetbook-type application for businesses, called the Saba People Cloud, competing with business social networks such as Yammer and Jive. But theres a twist: Everybody gets a People Quotient (pQ).

Yes, the pQ is a number that seeks to rate how valuable you are. Its reminiscent of services such as Reppify and BranchOut that analyze your activity on public social networks Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to create a score for HR departments thinking about hiring you. Instead, Sabas grabs similar info from its own company-specific social network and build a score specific to your activity in the workplace.

In some fields, employees are already rated with hard metrics. Salespeople are easily ranked by the number of deals or dollars they bring in. But in other cases, your impact to the company is difficult to pin down. Saba CEO Bobby Yazdani tells Wired that he wants to cultivate an environment where a company knows exactly how well all employees are performing. We want an organization where people can benchmark themselves and know the impact of what they do, he says.

At this point, sharing a pQ score across the network is optional. But to many, it may feel like another example of social networking turning into Big Brother. While Yazdani says Saba is just starting this journey with pQ, rating ones performance according to their activity on a social network will undoubtably provoke debate. After all, theres more to work than sharing, commenting and the other nuances of social networking.

The algorithm behind pQ will examine a wide range of data. Simple tasks like completing your Saba profile and entering background certifications contribute to the score. But as you use the service regularly updating your status, following other employees, and being followed your activity will play into the score as well.

The engine looks across an organization to compare your performance against other managers with similar positions and goals, and it determines the quality of your social interactions and contributions across the company. The idea of quality is part Google search algorithm, part gamification, and part natural language processing. Its like a corporate Klout score a controversial score that rates your social networking impact on the public internet.

The more you accrue followers, engage with others, and post stuff that people reference in their own posts, the better your pQ score. If you share a report you wrote and a bunch of people cite it, your pQ increases. Saba also runs through the feedback and comments on what you share, and it decides whether it was of value to the company.

Not all businesses have the same goals and operations. But Saba says that as employees share and interact on Sabas network, the algorithms learn how people operate and react accordingly. The system also alerts employees when their scores are low.

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Meet Saba, the Social Network That Rates Your Job Skills