We just published our third semi-annual update of premier companies and products in the online community and social networking space. Our watch list now includes "formal" coverage of 15 companies (see the Watch List page of this blog for the list of companies under both formal and informal coverage). For these companies, we look at how they fared during the first half of 2009 with regard to customer acquisition, product lines, service offerings, pricing, business and technology partnerships, financial performance, and organizational structure.
[The full report is available here.]
Over the next few weeks, we'll post an excerpt from the report on each of the 15 companies.
Overall, results for the first half of 2009 for these companies were mostly positive. After a mixed 2H 2008, many companies saw increased customer acquisition and consequently stronger revenues; several reported record earnings. After some reductions in force from late 2008 and early 2009, organizational stability returned, and hiring is strong as of this writing. This bodes well for the rest of the year. Capital investment is down as compared to a year ago—only one vendor raised funds from outside investors in 1H 2009—but with all-but frozen credit markets and investment in high-tech companies down in general, there were no real expectations of such investment anyway.
Product development continued dramatically, with new releases from virtually every company. Platform enhancements and additions were across the board, although there was widespread focus on community and business analytics, and integration with the larger social Web (particularly Facebook and Twitter).
What’s New in The Report
Industry analyses are ever evolving in both their content and format, largely based on what we're hearing from readers and clients. This version of the report includes the following additions:
Customer Communities. About one third of the companies on our watch list provide online community resources for their customers. These communities, which invariably run on their own platform, are typically for some subset of these four groups of people: (1) community managers, administrations, and moderators, (2) software developers, (3) business partners (such as digital and interactive marketing agencies), and (4) the general public. Some of these communities are visible to the public (although with registration required to participate beyond reading posts and comments), and some are accessible only to clients. For those companies that provide a peer-to-peer community area for one or more of these groups, a brief description and URL are provided in that company’s “Customers” section.
We think there's no better way of supporting your customers and showing off your product in action than using it to support an online community (ideally an open, public one).
Customer Conferences. About one third of the companies on our watch list also run one or more customer get-togethers, such as an annual conference. Most of these events are in person, but virtual events are showing some traction. For those companies that run such a conference, a brief description is provided (with date and location, if available) in that company’s “Customers” section.
Client Community Screen Shots. For each company, a screen shot is displayed of a recently launched community.
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