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Social Software Landscape

By David Teten and Scott Allen

We view social software companies as falling into five large buckets. We have listed a few representative companies in each bucket below. Please note that the lines between categories are fuzzy. Many of these companies could fit comfortably into a different box than the one in which we placed them. For more information on these companies, please visit our social software directory.

Primary Customers

The Public

Enterprise

General Purpose

Realtime communications-- chat, IM, VoIP, web conferencing, SMS. AOL IM, ICQ, Gush, IRC, Meebo, MSN Messenger, Net2Phone, Skype, Yahoo! Messenger

Virtual communities / social network services. Alumni.net, AOL, Classmates, Craigslist, ezboard, FriendsReunited, MSN Groups, MSN Spaces, Tribe.net, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! 360

Identity management. FreshAddress, Return Path, Ziggs

Blog readers. Bloglines, NewsGator

Face-to-face meeting facilitation sites. Evite, Meetup

Blog software. Blogger, Six Apart, Radio Userland, Wordpress

Tagging/Bookmarking. del.icio.us, de.lirio.us, 43things, Technorati

Virtual community builders. Affinity Engines, Aptium, Groupee, Internet Access Corporation,Invision Power Services, IntroNetworks, Lithium, SelectMinds, vBulletin,Web Crossing

Biography analysis. ZillionResumes, ZoomInfo

Public social network mapping. Capital IQ, LinkSV, TheyRule.net

Contact data management/CRM. Best Software (Act), Frontrange (Goldmine), Salesforce.com, SugarCRM

Blog analysis/publishing tools. FeedBurner, Pheedo

Blog seach engines. Bloglines, Technorati,

Primarily Business Use

Virtual communities / social network services. Always-On Network, Ecademy, LinkedIn, MediaBistro, Monster Networking, OpenBC, Ryze

Relationship capital management. Jigsaw, LinkedIn, Spoke Software

Contact data synchronization. GoodContacts, Plaxo

Relationship capital management (enterprise-focused). BranchIt, Contact Network, Interface Software, Leverage Software, Visible Path

Workflow. Basecamp, Groove, IBM Lotus Notes, iCohere, SilkRoad

Online Marketing Intelligence. BuzzLogic, Trendum, Intelliseek, Cymfony, Brandimensions

Blogs. 21Publish, SixApart, Traction Software

Wikis. Atlassian, JotSpot, SocialText

Reverse social networking. Innersell

Social network analysis/knowledge management. Entopia, Tacit

Job referral networks. Accolo, H3.com, Jobster

Expert network-based research. Nitron Advisors

Primarily Personal Use

Blog publishing networks. Creative Weblogging, Gawker Media, Weblogs, Inc.

Virtual communities / social network services. aSmallWorld, Bebo, Friendster, hi5, 20six, LiveJournal, Multiply, Myspace, Orkut, Sconex, Facebook, Tickle, Xanga

Mobile social software. dodgeball, Plazes, nTAG, WaveMarket

Photo-sharing sites. Flickr, Fotolog.net, WebShots

Dating sites. eHarmony, lavalife, Match.com, PerfectMatch, Spark Networks, TRUE, Yahoo! Personals

This table is very loosely based on earlier taxonomies by Geoff Hyatt, CEO, Contact Network Corp, and Stowe Boyd, President/COO, Corante.



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