Online Community Platform -- Company and Product Update -- 1H 2008

For many years, my colleagues have been writing valuable and valued reports in their own practice areas that provide updates of the key vendors / solution providers they follow. This report marks our first in the online community and social media space. I expect to publish such an update every six months to stay current on the online community industry and the premier companies and platforms in this industry.

(While the complete report is available here for purchase and to PSGroup's Customers.com Research subscribers, I'll typically provide some excerpts in this blog.)

The watch list for this inaugural report consists of the following 10 companies: Awareness, HiveLive, Jive Software, Leverage Software, Lithium Technologies, LiveWorld, Mzinga, Small World Labs, Telligent, and Webcrossing. For each company, we look at customer acquisition; changes to products, services, and pricing; new partnerships; financial results; and organizational changes.

Overall, it was a very good first half of the year for all these companies. For each of them, sales, customer accounts, and/or company size grew. (Most of the companies are on track to see at least incremental revenue growth for 2008 compared to 2007, while others expect to double or even triple revenue year over year.) Nine of the 10 companies increased staff during 1H 2008 and are still in hiring mode. The companies, as a group, raised over $51 million in outside investment, opened four new offices (three of which were outside the US), and completed two corporate acquisitions.