I’m still waiting for my own setup, but having had a few days now to play with the updated version on ReutersInteractive, I have to say the wait was worth it.  The platform’s social networking functions, particularly, have been greatly enhanced and make Blogtronix a much stronger prospect in the commuity-building space.   

If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you may already know that I’m a huge fan of Blogtronix, which is the Swiss Army knife of collaboration/publishing platforms.  Other companies offer blogging, wiki, workgroup, RSS, social networking and web publishing software but Blogtronix is the only one I know that does it all.   Granted, it does some of these tasks better than others.

For example, it is especially awesome for an aggregation site like Social Media Today because it allows me to set up an “Autopost” function for each contributor that automatically pulls their updated feeds into a preview area where an editor—in this case, me—can quickly review them and select the ones that are on target for the site and delete the ones that aren’t.  It takes about 15 minutes three or four times a day to review the new input from about 50 blogs and select material to publish—something that would have been a full-time job for two people in the old world of print. 

On the other hand, the old version that I’ve been using for the past six months had many built-in social networking features (the ability of users to create profiles, comment, rate posts, and post directly, for example) but they were hard to find and not clearly marked.  In addition, users could not build their own customized network or communicate directly and immediately with each other. There was no “Forum” feature. 

The new version addresses the missing elements and  makes the interface much more “social.”  Comments now appear directly under posts and note the placement of the ”Rating” and “Add Comment” links on posts:

The updated user profile page lets community members add connections, build customized teams, subscribe to RSS feeds and communicate instantly with each other.  The page also offers a “Posts” and “Spreadsheets” view of the user, as well as a “Profile.” 

I’ll have more to say about the new Blogtronix upgrade when I’ve had a chance to use it for awhile but check out ReutersInteractive for a good preview.  And, see the movie. 

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On Tuesday, Socialtext announced that it was the wiki part of an bundle of social software called SuiteTwo-packaged by Intel Capital, the chipmaker’s venture arm-to be sold through Intel channels. The other pieces of the suite are a wiki (Six Apart), a news reader (NewsGator), and an RSS news feeder (SimpleFeed), with SpikeSource supplying the support.

Some grizzled veterans of past software wars reacted with skepticism based on Intel’s well-documented inability to get out of its own way when it tries things not related to his core business. Others questioned the pricing, which is a considerable premium over the cost of each of components alone.

Not suprisingly, among those pronouncing SuiteTwo “no big deal” was Vassil Mladjov, CEO and co-founder of rival Blogtronix, which unveiled the new version of Blogtronix 1.5 on Wednesday which has integrated blogging, wiki, RSS feeds and an online RSS reader, as well as social networking capability.

“We at Blogtronix had all of this functionality more than a year ago under one platform and it was all integrated,” Mladjov wrote, in a comment on TechCrunch. “Not to mention that we did this without millions of dollars from VC’s (you need to combine the total of funding all the Suite2 companies) and with a fraction of the developers or the time it took them. In fact, we showed this to Intel Capital last year and they turned us down. Intel was not impressed that we were not from Stanford or Harvard and that we were only two guys (and 10 + developers).”

Do I detect a hint of class warfare in Silicon Valley?

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Jerry Bowles has more than 30 years of varied experience as a writer, editor, marketing consultant, corporate communications director and blogger. For the past 20 years, he has produced and written special supplements on new technologies for a number of magazines, including Forbes, Fortune and Newsweek.

http://www.enterpriseweb2.com