Social Collaboration For Dummies

Chapter 9

Charting the Products and Vendors

In This Chapter

Overcoming information overload

Getting started for free

Identifying distinguishing characteristics of the leaders

Dealing with SharePoint

Now it’s time to consider some leading social collaboration products and platforms.

The nature of book publishing means that this overview captures only a snapshot of a rapidly changing market. I do my best to provide updates on the For Dummies website. Of course, I also encourage you to keep tabs of the coverage on InformationWeek Social Business as well as other news and analyst reports.

This is the chapter where I help you sort out the crowded social collaboration vendor market and narrow your choices to a short list. I also tell you how you can try some programs for free, start a pilot program, and evaluate some of the major players. Because so many companies use SharePoint, I tell you how you can incorporate it (or not) into your social collaboration plan.

Examining Selected Social Collaboration Vendors

This section includes all the products listed in Gartner, Inc.’s 2012 Magic ...