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Vignette launches new community products

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Vignette announced the immediate availability of Vignette Community Services and the upcoming availability of Vignette Community Applications. The new community products enable organizations to add social computing capabilities to their Web sites to help strengthen their brand, increase user loyalty and drive revenue. Additionally, the suite of products seamlessly integrates with Vignette’s Web experience foundation, making it easier for customers to quickly add engaging social elements and Web 2.0 capabilities to their sites.

Web users today rely more heavily on their peers for advice on which companies to trust, products to evaluate or buy and services to select. According to the 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer, “a person like yourself” is often viewed as an organization’s most credible spokesperson. Vignette’s Community product line enables organizations to give a voice to this group of peer influencers, driving new levels of audience engagement on anything from content reviews to product development.

Vignette Community Services can help organizations connect with and engage key audiences by offering ratings, reviews, commenting and tagging capabilities, similar to the services found on YouTube and Netflix. Users are demanding that organizations offer these services so they can share ideas and learn from their peers.

Vignette Community Applications enables organizations to add features like blogs, wikis and forums to any Web property to improve transparency, increase interaction with and build customized communities to better engage their target audiences. Additionally, these organizations can leverage user-generated content and peer influence to create valuable online communities. For example, a software company may leverage forums or blogs to solicit feedback from customers throughout each phase of a product lifecycle.

Originally posted on April 9, 2008 @ 7:16 pm

Flickr adds video to its community

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flickr.pngFlickr has launched video sharing. Flickr pro members can now upload personal video clips and share them with friends, family and the world. The new enhancement is helping to advance Yahoo!’s goal to become the leading starting point on the Web by offering an even more engaging and relevant service for sharing, exploring and discovering digital imagery.

The new video uploading feature will support up to 90 seconds of personal video footage captured with the video function of any digital video recording device including still cameras, camcorders and camera phones. Video on Flickr gives members a glimpse into daily and extraordinary activities, from watching dogs play in a park to seeing someone climb Machu Picchu. Flickr members can organize and share videos just like they do photos; they can upload videos to their photostream along with their photos, and set their privacy settings for friends, family or the world to see. Videos will be moderated through a combination of Flickr team review, community review and automated abuse-spotting mechanisms.

Originally posted on April 9, 2008 @ 9:48 am

Zvents and AmericanTowns announce agreement to expand local online community resources

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Zvents, the local search engine for things to do, and AmericanTowns, a national network of hyperlocal community based websites, announced an agreement to increase online awareness about grassroots activities, neighborhood organizations, and local events across the United States, reaching beyond the big cities to vibrant but smaller communities.

Zvents will power the “Things to Do” platform for AmericanTowns, adding millions of important cultural and recreational events, venues and performer listings to AmericanTowns’ extensive database of over 10 million community events and 100,000 organizational listings. Zvents will also share AmericanTowns’ rich local content with the millions of unique users around the world already using Zvents’ cutting-edge local search technology products as part of the Zvents Media Network. As a result, users of both companies’ sites will be able to find, share, contribute and promote a broader range of events to a wider audience.

Originally posted on April 3, 2008 @ 9:11 pm

Zecco’s social investing community grows to 115,000 members

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Zecco Holdings, Inc., an online investing community that offers access to free stock trading through its wholly owned subsidiary, Zecco Trading, Inc., has added over 115,000 community members and has eclipsed 15,000 active ZeccoShare investor profiles. ZeccoShare is the company’s groundbreaking social investing community, which includes more transparency and functionality than anything of its kind.

Zecco also announced that Zecco Trading has opened over 70,000 brokerage accounts since the company opened its doors to customers in 2006. Zecco Trading offers customers 10 free stock trades every month for clients with at least $2,500 in assets. Zecco Trading has seen a steady increase in accounts despite the recent market turmoil, credit crisis and housing recession.

Originally posted on April 5, 2008 @ 10:03 pm

beRecruited launches online community for high school

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beRecruited.com, the nation’s largest free online network for high school athletes seeking recruitment from college coaches, has launched beRecruited Teams, an online community for each of the 14,000 high schools represented by the 175,000 high school athletes registered on the site. More than 70% of the approximately 20,000 high schools in the United States have at least one athlete registered on beRecruited.com.

beRecruited Teams provides a networking platform for like-minded athletes, coaches and fans organized by state, city, and individual high schools, allowing users to share their athletic profiles throughout beRecruited’s vast community. These profiles, which feature statistics, photos and video created by the athletes and verified by the high school coach, span the 18 sports that beRecruited currently supports.

Originally posted on April 3, 2008 @ 9:28 am