Social is taking Search in a more Democratic direction...

Totally agree with this article published on Vator.tv.

We definitely saw this trend over the last few quarters as "social communities" emerged and relevant content started to show up in these communities without a lot of effort by an individual member.

Our nRich product offers relevant content from trusted sources as well as its social rank. Gaming - like what JC Penny or Overstock tried - is not a big factor because other community members have already done the initial filtering.

Check out the demo here.

IDC - Desperately Seeking Differentiation

I got a chance to attend an IDC event last week where they shared their predictions for the Software market and discussed how companies can establish differentiation in 2011 and beyond.

Key themes:

1. Cloud/Near-Cloud - Differentiation by delivery model. [Not surprising. This is a well establish trend now.]
2. Mobile apps/Platform - Differentiation by Platform. [This is a significant trend and one whose impact will be felt for a number of years as a lot of applications will be re-built for the mobile platform. And not necessarily by the original owners. This will be very disruptive.]
3. Social Business - Differentiation by business process. [This is very interesting one as long as you are willing to open your mind to ideas from other people. Very disruptive internally, because you cannot control what/when/why conversations are happening - good or bad. So for paranoid people - this isn't good. But for open, progressive orgaizations, this can be very productive.]
4. Analytics/Big Data - Differentiation by Content/Information. [This is a logical progression. With content overload a well established issue, context-sensitive information packaged appropriately will definitely be well received by employees - especially senior executives.]

We'll share our perspectives in coming weeks and in the meantime would love to hear your predictions for 2011-2014.