Author: Marco Araujo

Salesforce.com has thrown its hat into the ring with the release of their collaboration tool. Chatter Free is initially going to be available only to people in companies with active Salesforce licenses, but that’s already a huge pool of users (one estimate I saw had the number at over 2 million).

http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/data_protection/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228700004&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

This is such a rapidly changing field, and the swell and stem of social networking looks at one moment to encompass the entire human experience – and then the next moment be engulfed in public backlash – that it’s anyone’s guess as to what this will mean in the long term.

I frankly find little utility in a social networking tool that’s restricted to one company, but maybe I just needed to spend more time with Kaiser Permanente’s “Ideabook” this summer. Hard to know.

A few years ago, when I started using Zipcar, I thought that even though it was a great idea, the company that comes up with a scheme by which users don’t have to return each car to the point of origin will strike gold. Daimler’s innovation unit, born from a company in dire need of a refresh, may be on track to do just that. This article from the Economist gives an idea of what may be on the horizon from a company driven to innovate to shed some Chrysler-tinted scar tissue and regain some brand equity:

http://www.economist.com/node/17311897?story_id=17311897&CFID=150939055&CFTOKEN=82656494

Another idea noted in the article is a ride share scheme that would allow informal carpooling to take place more easily via social networking. Getting to San Francisco from the East Bay, and vice versa, has been easier for the past 30 years or so with the “casual carpool,” where riders and drivers all line up at predetermined spots around these cities and essentially hitch across the bridge together. This delicate exercise in collectiveness and common courtesy was threatened with bridge toll hikes earlier this year, but an idea that can preserve it may just be coming from Germany soon.