It is time to use social networking to reach customers

Services, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and countless other websites, have had a profound effect on how millions of people — especially those under 35 — interact with others (or don't), shop and view brands.

Some statistics to justify your Social-media strategies:

• Facebook: More than 10,000 websites use Facebook Connect, a service that lets Facebook users log in to affiliated sites using their Facebook account and share information from those sites with their Facebook friends. About 30 million Facebook members access it through mobile devices.
• Twitter: Twitter users spend 66% more dollars on the Internet than non-Twitter users, says market researcher ComScore.
• MySpace: More than 1 million small businesses and individuals promote their goods and services on MySpace.
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn has more than 365,000 company profiles. More than 12 million small-business professionals are members of LinkedIn.

Forrester states "the time to build social marketing applications is now". Social technologies continue to grow in 2009. Now more than four in five US online adults use social media at least once a month, and half participate in social networks like Facebook. While young people continue to march toward almost universal adoption of social applications, the most rapid growth occurred among consumers 35 and older. This means the time to build social marketing applications is now.

Do not wait otherwise it might be to late!

Illustration of Assembled Web

How Assembled Web can be explained on a real life example by Nikki Baird.

Today a manufacturer is definitely expected to have detailed information about all of the products it proposes. But depending on the product category they're in, they might also need to provide a community - a place for people to engage and create content about the lifestyle the brand supports (as opposed to just the products that they sell). In addition the brand may decide that selling a limited selection of products - or even the whole catalog - may provide valuable information in convincing retailers to stock a broader assortment of the brand's wares. Therefore manufacturers may approach their online presence from a strength in content, but eventually need to support community and commerce.

On the other side, retailers have commerce down pretty well, but feel they need to do much more around content and community.

The full article on RSR.

Assembled Web and Content Syndication

Optaros (Switzerland) provides with OView an Content and Application Syndication Software that enables companies to place rich media content and applications on 3rd party sites and devices and centrally manage them as if they were on their own sites. For many enterprise applications, OView is a superior choice to widget platforms, microsites or ad networks.

There are two components to OView. The first component is the Application View which is the actual application to be placed on desired websites. The second component is the Syndication Service that provides all the necessary supporting capabilities to enable successful Application Syndication.

Read more on www.optaros.com

Optaros Wins 2009 Red Hat Innovation Award

Optaros (a Swiss and US based company) and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA) received the 2009 Red Hat Innovation Award in the JBoss Extensive Ecosystem Category. The award recognizes our work with the MCCA on their custom, open source event management system.

The solution assembled by Optaros, known as ShowBiz, helps streamline the detailed process of setting up large-scale events, and is now completely run on an open source stack that. Approximately 90 percent of the MCCA's day-to-day operations now run on open source solutions from JBoss Enterprise Middleware.

Optaros is one of the leading JBoss partner in the word and has many important Swiss JBoss implementation references such as: Swisscom, Nespresso, ABB, State of Vaud...

What is Assembled Web?

Optaros definition of Assembled Web would be something like: the convergence of content, community (collaboration), commerce (transaction).

Optaro's CMO compares siloed web to assemebled web on Optaro's blog.

An other popular definition of Assembled Web is the one proposed by Sebastian Wohlrapp.