CollectiveX thanks the blogging community
Posted by Clarence Wooten Wed, 22 Aug 2007 12:13:00 GMT
The entire CollectiveX team would like to thank the blogging community for their coverage of yesterday’s launch of CollectiveX 2.0—Introducing Groupsites.
There were many great reviews by popular Web 2.0 blogs and media ranging from TechCrunch to CNET. Each blog review provided a unique perspective into the features, benefits, and general thoughts regarding the CollectiveX platform for Groupsites. Some of the blog posts included colorful comments from some readers balanced by first hand endorsements from CollectiveX Champions.
The reviews:
Mike Arrington of TechCrunch kicked off our launch coverage with his post. He starts by providing a rundown of CollectiveX’s evolution since our beta test launch in February of last year. Mike explained how the initial focus of CollectiveX was for business-oriented groups such as boards and non-profits that needed private intranets for their members. He then covered our business model and commended us for doing a great deal with a small team and a minimal amount of funding (especially by Silicon Valley standards ;-)—Thanks Mike.
Kristen Nicole of Mashable followed up with her post which placed primary emphasis on how Groupsites enable members to combine their professional and social profiles on a single (CollectiveX) platform. The post mentioned the privacy issues that result in “merging these sides of life” but didn’t share how CollectiveX addresses these privacy issues with Groupsites. Perhaps a future post from Mashable will explore CollectiveX in greater depth.
Richard MacManus from Read/WriteWeb wrote a very insightful post that referred to Groupsites as Groupware 2.0 or “Social Groupware.” Although the term “Social Groupware” is new to me, I think his statement has a lot of validity. I can see how CollectiveX fits that mold for the many business users that currently use Groupsites. He further notes that he likes where CollectiveX is headed with our broader focus that balances consumer and enterprise but thinks it will be interesting to see if Groupsites can successfully be branded as both. I think we’re off to a good start so far, but time will tell. We’re excited about the ride ahead.
Rafe Needleman of CNET’s Webware blog took time out to interview me, evaluate CollectiveX and post about the launch of Groupsites on Webware. He starts off by saying that the CollectiveX is quite good and that “he would have no problem recommending Groupsites to someone who wants to build a professional or social site.” He mentions that CollectiveX won’t bite or frustrate its users – we are certainly happy to hear that… we work very hard at usability. He goes on to say that the analogy that I gave him when I referred to CollectiveX as a “build your own Facebook” is more aspirational than accurate. He won’t here me disagree with that ;-) CollectiveX is millions of users away from their scale and, unlike Facebook, we are totally group-centric.
Steven Fisher of Startup Spark started a multi-part post that will cover our launch throughout the week. His posts will be centered around his interview with me regarding my experiences as an entrepreneur. I personally know that Steve is not too shabby of an entrepreneur himself. I look forward to his follow-up posts on our launch. I am also hopeful that others will gain some insight on how crazy one must be to do this (I referring to being an entrepreneur of course ;-).
Last but not least, we’d like to thank Dave Sabol for writing a great post on his Associated Knowledge blog about his experience as a user since he discovered CollectiveX. Dave covers in eloquent detail how he came upon CollectiveX after having looked at pretty much every major group-oriented product. It is users like Dave and Gareth, who wrote a similar post a few months back, that make the hard work put forth by the entire CollectiveX team rewarding.
We thank you all for helping to make the official media launch of Groupsites a success. I speak for the entire CollectiveX team when I say we value your feedback and patronage of our service and look forward to having you take this ride with us as we continue to build and improve as a company.
Sincerely,
Clarence Wooten and the CollectiveX Team