backtop

Print 40 comment(s) - last by plinkplonk.. on Jun 13 at 8:50 AM
TownSquare is simply a test platform says Office Labs

Microsoft’s Office Labs section has been working on a prototype social networking application that is said to be very similar to Facebook. The main difference is that the Office Labs social networking platform -- called TownSquare -- is not meant for general use on the internet.

Rather, TownSquare is an application designed to allow enterprise employees to keep in touch with other employees in the enterprise. Office Labs was asked by the SharePoint and Office product development teams to create TownSquare according to InfoWorld.

TownSquare can provide employees feeds and updates about coworkers including notifying them of things like the updating of documents, co-worker promotions and company anniversaries. Users of the system can even allow the feed to tell other users when they are in a meeting or out for a coffee break.

Details of TownSquare are to be released at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston this Thursday by the general manager of Office Labs, Chris Pratley. Pratley told ComputerWorld that so far in testing within Microsoft about 8,000 employees had visited the network at least once and that about 700 employees use the network daily. Pratley also says that some Microsoft customers are also currently testing TownSquare within their companies.

Pratley said in April when Office Labs was first announced that it was not in the business of producing finished software and its wares could have bugs. In a similar statement, Pratley says TownSquare is not a product and is only a platform to test the technology concepts used in the application.

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
By JasonMick (blog) on 6/11/2008 11:40:23 AM , Rating: 2
Yay another social network, hurrah!

My brother aptly pointed out that the average person 25 or younger, particularly those in college spends at least 1-2 hours a day browsing social networks and playing on them. Thats rather sad.

After pondering on this lost time, last week I officially put up a notice on my myspace/facebook saying I was taking a vacation from social networks. Since I've been putting those hours to use doing something useful -- like reading books.

As I say in my notice of departure, if you want to interact with me don't message me, call me on the phone.




By Possessed Freak on 6/11/2008 11:50:38 AM , Rating: 2
If there is one thing you and I can agree on, it is that. I have never registered on a social networking site and see no reason to (despite being in the demographic when the sites launched).

If you need to reach me, call me. Don't text me, don't email me, and certainly don't try to reach me on AIM.


By SolidSteel144 on 6/11/2008 12:05:01 PM , Rating: 4
It's a good thing I know your phone number. ;)


By peritusONE on 6/11/2008 12:19:06 PM , Rating: 4
I'm sure when the telephone was first invented, there were idiots like you who got all pissy because they didn't want to keep up with the times, telling their family and friends, "If you need to reach me, either write me a letter and send it via courier or hop on your horse and come over. Don't even think about calling me on this newfangled device!"


By Possessed Freak on 6/11/2008 12:44:32 PM , Rating: 2
You got it backwards. The time it takes to reach me on a phone is less then a second. The time it takes to reach me via email is at least 3 minutes depending on mail servers.

Going from a form of long wait (couriers) to one of no wait (phone) makes logical sense. Going from one of instantaneous response (phone) to one of delay (texting, social networking, email, etc) makes no sense.

Try to get past those logical hurdles for me and then we will talk. Case in point, it took me much longer to reply to this post (and to realize you posted this) then if we were in a real time conversation.


By SeanMI on 6/11/2008 1:08:31 PM , Rating: 2
Point taken. But you managed to communicate with how many people in the time it took you to post this? Yeah, try doing that with a phone.


By Possessed Freak on 6/11/2008 3:36:05 PM , Rating: 2
Oh, no doubt. I can reach a greater audience through posting on the Internet then I can talking on a phone, but I thought the argument was about personal interaction and the time it takes to reply. This is about as impersonal as it gets.

There are benefits to using Internet forums, but I see little need for it to be a personal based one. If it was personal, and they are friends of mine, they know my phone number and can talk to me.


By emoser96 on 6/11/2008 1:08:57 PM , Rating: 3
one benefit of texting and email vs phone can be the delay. The benefit is not in getting the information to you, but, if a response is not immediately needed (or at all for that matter), an email or a text can provide you the opportunity to respond at your convenience.


By plinkplonk on 6/13/2008 8:50:21 AM , Rating: 2
well said :D


By Master Kenobi (blog) on 6/11/2008 12:32:57 PM , Rating: 2
Agreed. Social Networking is vastly overated. I get by just fine with plain old Email and Phone. Granted I do have some IM services but that is more for meetings between me and some of my gaming buddies, or the obligatory tech support questions from lusers I know.


By tdawg on 6/11/2008 1:33:04 PM , Rating: 2
The nice thing about the ability to text or email is to shoot off a quick note without having to worry about getting bogged down in a conversation, which is especially if you're between meetings and need to firm up arrangements for the evening.


By tdawg on 6/11/2008 1:39:32 PM , Rating: 2
missed "important". :)


By spluurfg on 6/12/2008 8:27:05 AM , Rating: 2
Yeah, I don't see why people are going on about this as though it's a facebook clone. It seems to me more like Microsoft actually got around and made the 'tasks' function in Outlook useful and ended up wtih this.

Personally I have coordinate on projects with other offices internationally. Email/Outlook sucks for this. I for one wouldn't mind something more robust and somewhat more interactive than a documentation text file in the server.


By BioHazardous on 6/11/2008 2:31:15 PM , Rating: 2
Isn't DailyTech one step away from being a social website? I mean here you guys are sharing ideas with your own DailyTech accounts. Now all we need is the ability to customize our accounts to have some more personal info and we could invite our friends to join our DailyTech social network. How many of you spend more than 10-15 minutes a day reading and posting on here? It seems a lot like the same addiction just that everybody here tends to have a hard-on for anything new in technology.

I'm not a huge fan of social networking sites personally as MySpace has just tons of spam and Facebook is impossible to find people you don't already know info about. If I wanted to look up an old friend from high school or something I'd have to fish through hundreds or thousands of profiles of people with the same name and a tiny picture to try and figure out if it's really them or not. Then you can try emailing all of them and ask them. Just a pain.. But at least they don't have the spam MySpace does. I only check them a couple times a day and we're actually planning our ten year highschool reunion through Facebook.


By JimmyC on 6/13/2008 1:29:12 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Isn't DailyTech one step away from being a social website? I mean here you guys are sharing ideas with your own DailyTech accounts. Now all we need is the ability to customize our accounts to have some more personal info and we could invite our friends to join our DailyTech social network. How many of you spend more than 10-15 minutes a day reading and posting on here?

It may be a bit late and I may already be loopy, but you sir/ma'am, just blew my mind.


By winterspan on 6/11/2008 10:57:40 PM , Rating: 2
Wow, how do you possibly get anything done? You must be one of the least productive individual on earth, or you have no friends, family, or job.
Email, text messages, and instant messaging is great for communication that isn't particularly time sensitive. If I told everyone that needs to speak with me to only call my phone, I would go crazy being interrupted so many times a day. Instead, when I am finished with a certain task and taking a break, I can check out all my new email/text messages and answer them all at the same time. That is the real advantage to these technologies.
Of course, when "mis-used" they can make someone extremely unproductive. You just have to tell people to only message you when they actually NEED to talk, not to IM you every 3 minutes with small talk.


By SoundGarD on 6/11/2008 12:11:58 PM , Rating: 2
it seems to me like this isn't meant to be used for global networking (ie myspace) but rather localized to an intranet-style way to communicate more efficiently. plug in to the office system and work as exchange currently does, perhaps?

myspace for business!!! .. who knows.


By WillBurt on 6/11/2008 12:18:08 PM , Rating: 2
CoWorker1 : "How come John is always turns on his away message 9:30?"

CoWorker2 : "He's very regular"


By omnicronx on 6/11/2008 12:13:52 PM , Rating: 2
Social networking sites are great for organizing parties and get-togethers. In fact that is the only thing I use it for.


By ksherman on 6/11/2008 12:45:30 PM , Rating: 5
It is also useful for keeping up with friends that are not around anymore. I happened to have found an old friend that moved to Colorado many many years ago on MySpace.

Granted, MySpace is horrid and I haven't used it in a long time, to summarily say they are useless, stupid and a wast of time is about as short sighted as saying that computers will never need more than 64k of RAM.

I personally like Facebook because it doesn't require me to be on all the time, but is great to keep up with someone at least a little bit. Plus, if you arent a friend of mine (or in my school network) you aren't able to see my profile etc...


By onwisconsin on 6/11/2008 1:01:16 PM , Rating: 2
Amen brother. Much easier to keep in contact with friends and such


By onwisconsin on 6/11/2008 1:07:16 PM , Rating: 2
Forget to mention I was a doubter for years too........


By sporr on 6/11/2008 12:45:17 PM , Rating: 3
Actually, Facebook is very handy. I'll list the reasons why,

1. You can contact friends you have not seen for a long time, perhaps old school friends, and catch up and see how they are doing. (facebook was the only way I was able to add old school friends, because others added them, and I could see them through that. I would not have come across them otherwise.)

2. Organise a party or group event, sending invites to whoever you wish and making all required arrangements clearly and in your own time.

3. You can talk or discuss in your own time, similar to email. Only you don't need to save everyones email address or even need to remember it in the first place.

4. Upload pictures of events, parties or anything you please. People can then view these in their own time. It may be photo's taken at a party or other occasion, and your friends who attended can see them. This one is particularly handy for me, when me and my friends are out one night, one friend will take some photo's of the shenanigans and they will be uploaded for all to see, or laugh at :)

5. You can join groups, for discussions, or merely to show your support or involvement in something.

That is not an exhaustive list, just off the top of my head.

I just think it may be somewhat ignorant to completely disregard the usefulness of this new phenomenon.


By Master Kenobi (blog) on 6/11/2008 1:39:45 PM , Rating: 2
Then your mission, should you choose to accept it. I'm looking for a "social networking" style of website. I would like the ability to post different types of files ranging from JPEG's, VSD's, DOC's, XML's, HTML's, TXT's, VBS's, PPT's, and XLS'. I've not found any that match this criteria but you might know of one I haven't come across yet.


By baseball43v3r on 6/11/2008 3:02:16 PM , Rating: 2
why on earth would you ever need to do that? how about this. upload those types of files to a file repository and then link them on a social website? or this one... use the facebook api and create the apps needed to use al those filetypes. You sir, seem to be the only one that would ever need all those types of files. if you truly need all that, host your own website, because thats not the purpose of a social networking site.

A social networking site is usually very good at what it does, connect people. not documents, once you get that through your head you may reapply with your very stupid mission and actually post something constructive.


By spluurfg on 6/12/2008 8:34:06 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
why on earth would you ever need to do that? how about this. upload those types of files to a file repository and then link them on a social website?


You're missing the point, I think. The thing is, the social-network concept works great for project management type stuff. Coordination in facebook is a lot easier than email when it comes to setting up events, but is a lot faster than setting up a dedicated website.

quote:
A social networking site is usually very good at what it does, connect people. not documents, once you get that through your head you may reapply with your very stupid mission and actually post something constructive.


What if we want to connect people who are all working on the same set of documents? Automatic change logging? A sensible development bulletin set up automatically? User opt-in mailgroups (without asking my systems admin to set up a mail group?). All through web? Sounds nice to me...

I'm sick of digging up emails through outlook search, or trolling through the server to find which was the most recently modified version of the project I want. And don't tell me to use something other than MS products, because I don't call the shots on that, and that's what the rest of the business world uses.


By Master Kenobi (blog) on 6/12/2008 9:02:32 AM , Rating: 2
Indeed. He completely missed the point of the exercise. Social Networking as a concept applies to far more than just sharing pictures. Infact its kind of a crime to handicap it in such a way that it only allows picture sharing/posting. Office Live is a good start but its still not quite 100% there. Office Live and Facebook hybrid would probably be far closer to what I'm looking for.


By baseball43v3r on 6/12/2008 7:14:22 PM , Rating: 2
no i didnt miss the point, you just dont understand what a social networking site is for. lets break it down, social -pertaining to, devoted to, or characterized by friendly companionship or relations - and networking - a supportive system of sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common interes. Sites like facebook and myspace, do this quite well, they allow people to be socially connected to each other on a simple level. to stay in communication and to see what is occuring in their lives.

If you want something more then that then it is not social networking. it then becomes project management perhaps, what you are looking for is something to integrate work into the more personal side of your life, it seems like.


By sporr on 6/11/2008 3:08:03 PM , Rating: 2
Mmm, sounds like your just after file hosting?


By BarkHumbug on 6/12/2008 3:31:03 AM , Rating: 2
Sounds like a project management website to me. There are plenty of commercial and a couple of free ones out there. Just Google it.


By Spivonious on 6/11/2008 12:47:27 PM , Rating: 2
I think they're great for when you're in college, since you have boatloads of free time. Once you're out in the real world though, they just aren't very useful. My class was just on the way out when MySpace/Facebook started getting popular, but we used AIM as our primary form of communication. I don't even have AIM installed anymore.


By omnicronx on 6/11/2008 1:08:05 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I think they're great for when you're in college, since you have boatloads of free time. Once you're out in the real world though, they just aren't very useful.
Depends what you do, I am at work reading this post right now! They had to block out facebook here, because its usage during work hours had got out of hand. Stupid Toronto with 1/3 people having a facebook account.


By Reclaimer77 on 6/11/2008 4:46:37 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
Since I've been putting those hours to use doing something useful -- like reading books.


And writing more biased heavy handed journalism designed to incite flame wars instead of good discussion.


By BarkHumbug on 6/12/2008 3:51:55 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
good discussion


Coming from you that's almost funny. ;)


By baseball43v3r on 6/11/2008 6:46:32 PM , Rating: 2
to bad you couldnt do something more useful then say... posting on here. puts it all in perspective doesn't it? the things that you may find pointless someone else may find enjoyable. its all a matter of perspective.


By Moishe on 6/12/2008 8:53:35 AM , Rating: 2
We don't need more social networks, BUT I can say this... failing to buy into something that is clearly a phenomenon is just staying behind by choice. Some people prefer the phone, some prefer email, some people I know only really respond to Myspace comments or msgs. I have my own preferences, but in order to stay in contact with certain people I am willing to have active accounts on the social networks.

Regarding the time spent... I have a feeling that a lot of younger people use the internet instead of watching tv. I certainly do. I read, go to school, work 45 hours, sing/play in a band, etc... TV takes time in chunks, but I can get to all my intarwebs in spurts, at work, on my phone, etc.

Seems like a waste, but if you have little time, you choose how to spend it and many younger people haven't ever been into reading. I would say that in general, reading books is not "more useful" than being on the internet, depending on what you're reading, of course.

Really though, on the topic... I think this sort of product from MS makes sense for them. They are continually building value into their OS and Office products and it does help the products sell and stay ahead of the competition.


As with all things...
By chmilz on 6/11/2008 2:40:07 PM , Rating: 2
All I can say is, if it's not any good, why is it popular?
I could live without social networking, but let me tell you, it sure is great to have.

Same with Wal-Mart, many people bash it, yet it's the biggest retail chain in the world because everyone but those flamers find value in what it has to offer.

If you don't want to use Facebook for whatever your personal reasons are, fine, but don't go preaching to it's users that it's useless when in fact we've used it to our advantage.




RE: As with all things...
By Choppedliver on 6/11/2008 5:53:46 PM , Rating: 2
Amen.

I love how people always think just because *they* don't see the value in something, there must not be any.

Different stroke for different folks, folks.

Walmart - People hate it or love it. I wish I was a Walton
Facebook - "" . I wish I was Mark Z
Microsoft "". I wish I was Bill Gates

Get out of your comfort zone folks, and realize that your opinion ( and mine ) is really irrelevant in the global scheme of things.


office facebook
By root mean sq on 6/11/2008 5:09:56 PM , Rating: 3
i can see it now;

*allan smithee has just saved an excel file
view file
edit file
download file

*jane doe is on vacation: 4:59 p.m.




"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer











botimage
Copyright 2012 DailyTech LLC. - RSS Feed | Advertise | About Us | Ethics | FAQ | Terms, Conditions & Privacy Information | Kristopher Kubicki