Category Archives: Facebook

Customer Relationship Management, Education, Facebook, Social media, SRM University, Twitter

How 360° Student Relationship Management Could Benefit Your Educational Institution

If you run a higher educational institution, your student is your customer. Surprising as it may sound, consider this: the focus of most initiatives in your institute needs to be the student. Starting from attracting them to join your institute, to the way their association with you is managed, you could achieve desired results if you plan your strategy keeping the student in the spotlight.

IT can play an essential role in helping you manage student relations. A Student Relationship Management (SRM) framework can help you forge a better connection with your students, keep you aware of any reasons that could cause dissatisfaction or churning and provides mechanisms to address such situations at the earliest.

Challenges to be addressed by an SRM Solution

Some of the challenges faced by higher educational institutions are:

  • Improving student enrolment and retention

  • Encouraging a lifelong learning process, including alumni engagement

  • Bringing about pricing optimization for education companies to make higher education affordable for the student yet profitable for the provider

  • Motivating the creation of educational products and services

  • Building and maintaining the brand image across all channels of publicity

  • Engaging and retaining staff

Other than the students, it is the faculty who play a very important role in establishing the reputation of an institution, which, in turn, attracts the required students. An efficient 360° SRM system would consider the goals of all the stakeholders and incorporate them in a student-centric manner.

SRM Systems Incorporate Changing Roles and Experiences

All the stakeholders, including students, faculty and administrative personnel go through a range of experiences in association with the institution.Beginning from when they enter the institute as strangers to the sense of belonging them cultivate over time; they would need to be treated differently according to their changing role. A seasoned vendor such as HCL Tech would ensure that these changing roles and functions are also a part of the provided system. This means that any situations that require intervention, such as a dissatisfied student who may be thinking of leaving the institution, would definitely have an addressing mechanism. If the design accounts for all such cases, hardly any scenario would remain truly “unexpected”.

SRM Solutions Harness Social Media

The management bodies of educational institutions would definitely be aware of the reach of social media among students. You can now harness the might of this medium in a positive manner. A service provider like HCL Tech could help you with using a popular platform like Facebook or Twitter to actively engage with an existing and prospective student population. For example, a Facebook page could be a medium used by the institution for such interaction. Social media apps used along with pattern recognition mechanisms may also be used.

Choosing HCL Tech to implement your 360° Student Relationship Management System is an important step, as it ensures that you receive a comprehensive, modern and efficient solution. All the building blocks including the data layer, CRM services, data analytics and social ecosystem, including mobile apps, would beput in place for you. All you need to do is to build on them further and operate them efficiently to ensure the success of your institution’s student relations strategy.

To know more about the topic please read the whitepaper presented by HCL Technologies.

Big Data, Data center, Facebook, Green, Hardware, Oregon, Prineville Oregon, Social, Storage

Take a Photo Tour of Facebook’s Amazing Cold Storage Datacenter

There’s a fascinating photo tour of Facebook’s Oregon data center on readwrite today.

Facebook (arguably) owns more data than God.

But how to store a cache of user data collected at the scale of omniscience? If you’re Facebook, just build another custom-crafted server storage locker roughly the size of the USS Abraham Lincoln on top of a breezy plateau in the Oregon high desert. The company’s new Prineville, Ore., data center employs an ultra-green ”cold storage” plan designed from the ground up to meet its unique—and uniquely huge—needs.

The piece also includes useful links on the tech behind the data center, shingled drive tech, and the Open Compute project that led to the innovations on display here.

Amazon AWS, Facebook, Google, Hardware, Magnetic storage, Open Compute Project, Opinion, Research, Seagate Technology, Storage, Tape library

Will Disks Using Shingled Magnetic Recording Kill Tape for Cold Storage?

We previously reported on the rumored Seagate/eVault “cold storage” tech initiative seeking to use disks to supplant tape libraries.

Now come this analysis from The Register.

We know Facebook’s Open Compute Project has a cold storage vault configuration using shingled magnetic recording drives. Both Google (mail backup and more) and Amazon (Glacier) have tape vaults in their storage estate. Shingled drives could change that equation because, probably, the cost/GB of a 6TB shingled drive is a lot less that that of a 4TB drive and, over, say, 500,000 drives, that saving turns into a big sum of dollars.

What are shingled drives, you ask? This video from Seagate explains:

Facebook, Infographic, Karen Leland, Marketing, Pinterest, Social, Social media, Social network, Twitter

How Businesses Can Use the Number Three Social Network (and Do You Know Which It Is?)

Pinterest is a social bookmarking site that allows users to create a visual, online pinboard with images they love organized around topics of their choice by category. It’s the fastest growing social media site in history, the third-largest network after Facebook and Twitter and has over 25 million members and 10 million unique visitors a month, nearly three-quarters of them women.

Karen Leland, author of the new book “Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Pinterest for Business,” has created a comprehensive and easy-to-use guide to hitting the road running and quickly making Pinterest into a valuable source of prospects, promotion and profits.

“Great business brands are about telling compelling, congruent stories, and Pinterest is at its core about storytelling in pictures,” says Leland. “Pinterest has tapped into this visceral lover of visuals, and no small business, entrepreneur or corporation can afford to miss the boat on bringing what they offer beyond words and into images.”

Following her own advice resulted in this infographic:

Citrix Systems, Facebook, Filesharing, Research, Social networking service, Twitter

Citrix Survey Shows Most Don’t Know What Cloud Computing Is

It should come as no surprise that when the general public doesn’t recognize or fully understand what’s behind a tech industry buzzword, and a recent survey on behalf of Citrix is a reminder:

A majority of Americans (54 percent) claim to never use cloud computing. However, 95 percent of this group actually does use the cloud. Specifically, 65 percent bank online, 63 percent shop online, 58 percent use social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, 45 percent have played online games, 29 percent store photos online, 22 percent store music or videos online, and 19 percent use online file-sharing. All of these services are cloud based. Even when people don’t think they’re using the cloud, they really are.

Read more.


Facebook, IT Management, ManageEngine, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, Social, Social network, Twitter

ManageEngine Ships Private Social Network Exclusively for IT

ManageEngine today announced the general availability of ITPulse, a private social network built exclusively for IT teams. ITPulse engages and socializes IT teams by establishing a one-stop, cascading wall for real-time display of IT infrastructure health and collaboration in a secure and fun environment.

Today’s lean IT model forces IT teams to make decisions on the fly, forcing them to ditch the traditional email-based communication systems and adopt instant collaboration tools such as Facebook-type social networks. However, concerns about data security make IT reluctant to adopt social networks for official communication. To meet the unique communication needs of IT, ITPulse includes a Facebook-like wall for having discussions and sharing articles and videos in a private and restricted domain. Only users within the domain can access the wall, and the data shared are not leaked to the outside world.

“IT teams love ITPulse as it offers a common wall for both IT and IT management tools,” said Dev Anand, director of product management at ManageEngine. “Any alarm, event, report, overdue ticket, etc. created in the IT management tool is automatically posted on the wall. IT folks can pick them up from the wall in real time and start working on them straightaway.”

Anand added, “Apart from offering a social platform for real-time collaboration, ITPulse also acts as a secure communication channel during disasters such as a mail server outage. IT folks can discuss the issue and the troubleshooting steps on the wall from anywhere, anytime.”

IT Gets a Social Network of Its Own

ITPulse reflects the experience and expertise ManageEngine has developed in serving more than 60,000 customers representing more than one million IT users worldwide. The overarching goal of ITPulse is to improve the quality of information and communications for IT users. To that end, ManageEngine is making ITPulse available as both a standalone SaaS service as well as a module that will integrate with its portfolio of IT management tools, including

  • OpManager
    – User actions, such as alarm pickup, alarm clear, alarm delete and
    alarm notes, will be reflected automatically on the ITPulse wall.
  • ServiceDesk
    Plus     – User actions, such as ‘add a knowledge-base article,’
    ‘add a problem request,’ ‘add a change request,’ and ‘approve a change
    request,’ will be posted on the ITPulse wall automatically.
    Additionally, users working from within the ITPulse UI will be able to
    initiate actions in ServiceDesk Plus.

The integrations, in turn, drive powerful automations that streamline IT collaboration in problem prevention and resolution. For example, if a network admin makes a change to a router config file, which is picked up by change management software and reported in OpManager as an alarm, the data gets posted on the ITPulse wall if someone acknowledges the alarm or adds notes to it — a much faster process than communicating via email or telephone.

ITPulse includes group-in-group support, which lets sub-teams within an IT team privately chat among themselves, keeping private discussions intact and posting only the key findings to the entire team.

In addition to ManageEngine users, the company is making ITPulse available to all IT community members regardless of the tools they use to manage their networks. The ITPulse API is open and publicly available, enabling integration with tools from BMC, CA, HP, IBM and other vendors, as well as with homegrown management solutions, such as a daily back-up script for a storage area network. The company is also making ManageEngine professional services available to provide technical support for third-party integrations.

Pricing and Availability

ITPulse is available immediately. In addition to the ITPulse Free Edition, which supports up to two users, ITPulse Professional Edition is $5 per user per month. The Professional Edition includes technical support via support@youritpulse.com. ITPulse is available at a discount for existing ManageEngine customers; this special offer can be accessed at http://ow.ly/chvJx.

Users can sign up for ITPulse at https://youritpulse.com/signup. User licenses are available via the ITPulse store at http://itpulse.myshopify.com/products/it-pulse-user-license and via direct sales at sales@youritpulse.com.

For more information on ITPulse, please visit http://youritpulse.com. For more information on ManageEngine, please visit http://www.manageengine.com; follow the company blog at http://blogs.manageengine.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ManageEngine and on Twitter at @ManageEngine.


Collaboration, DropBox, Facebook, Google, Google Apps Marketplace, Social, Twitter

CaptureToCloud Launches Social Workspace Service for Professionals, SMBs

CaptureToCloud is announcing the launch of its new Social Workspace that, for the first time, allows users to capture any type of digital content to share or collaborate with anyone on any device in the cloud. CaptureToCloud was developed for professionals and SMB’s to deliver a unique Social Workspace and is tightly integrated with Google Apps. CaptureToCloud offers both a free and premium service and is available in the Google Apps Marketplace, Google Chrome Web Store, Google Play and at www.capturetocloud.com.

“Digital content is evolving rapidly, packing more information and coming in many different forms; yet the tools to capture, organize and share content have not progressed at the same pace,” said Ramon Nunez, CEO, CaptureToCloud. “Successful organizations and individuals rely on timely and relevant information and need a practical and efficient method to capture any digital content in their normal workflow, retain its original form and structure, and include it in private social conversations.”

CaptureToCloud changes how people work with content and moves beyond the traditional file-centric mentality. There is no longer a need to convert content from its original format into a file or to keep important but different types of content in different places. With the click of a button, users can capture Internet content or drag and drop items from Google Drive or files from Dropbox into their Social Workspace. Users can then organize content into topical or thematic collections and share them with anyone via email, Facebook, Twitter or CaptureToCloud while retaining control of their content. Users can engage others in private conversations that include people from inside and outside the firewall and integrate relevant content to work smarter and transform information sharing and decision-making.

“We deployed CaptureToCloud across our organization to make our team more productive,” said Oscar Garcia, CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce. “CaptureToCloud makes it easy to capture virtually any type of content in our normal workflow and work collaboratively with anyone in or outside our organization. The integration with Google Apps is a huge plus and being a cloud app makes it easy to install and manage.”

CaptureToCloud is also mobile and is the first app to capture mobile web pages. Mobile users not only have access to their content libraries, but can send, share and comment from their mobile devices while on the go.

“CaptureToCloud has fundamentally changed how our team works with digital content when collaborating with others,” said Jim Weldon, managing director of ePopDev. “Having all the relevant content for a project in one place and integrated with Google’s real-time document collaboration suite is genius.”

For more information visit www.capturetocloud.com.


Collaboration, DropBox, Facebook, Google, Google Apps Marketplace, Social, Twitter

CaptureToCloud Launches Social Workspace Service for Professionals, SMBs

CaptureToCloud is announcing the launch of its new Social Workspace that, for the first time, allows users to capture any type of digital content to share or collaborate with anyone on any device in the cloud. CaptureToCloud was developed for professionals and SMB’s to deliver a unique Social Workspace and is tightly integrated with Google Apps. CaptureToCloud offers both a free and premium service and is available in the Google Apps Marketplace, Google Chrome Web Store, Google Play and at www.capturetocloud.com.

“Digital content is evolving rapidly, packing more information and coming in many different forms; yet the tools to capture, organize and share content have not progressed at the same pace,” said Ramon Nunez, CEO, CaptureToCloud. “Successful organizations and individuals rely on timely and relevant information and need a practical and efficient method to capture any digital content in their normal workflow, retain its original form and structure, and include it in private social conversations.”

CaptureToCloud changes how people work with content and moves beyond the traditional file-centric mentality. There is no longer a need to convert content from its original format into a file or to keep important but different types of content in different places. With the click of a button, users can capture Internet content or drag and drop items from Google Drive or files from Dropbox into their Social Workspace. Users can then organize content into topical or thematic collections and share them with anyone via email, Facebook, Twitter or CaptureToCloud while retaining control of their content. Users can engage others in private conversations that include people from inside and outside the firewall and integrate relevant content to work smarter and transform information sharing and decision-making.

“We deployed CaptureToCloud across our organization to make our team more productive,” said Oscar Garcia, CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce. “CaptureToCloud makes it easy to capture virtually any type of content in our normal workflow and work collaboratively with anyone in or outside our organization. The integration with Google Apps is a huge plus and being a cloud app makes it easy to install and manage.”

CaptureToCloud is also mobile and is the first app to capture mobile web pages. Mobile users not only have access to their content libraries, but can send, share and comment from their mobile devices while on the go.

“CaptureToCloud has fundamentally changed how our team works with digital content when collaborating with others,” said Jim Weldon, managing director of ePopDev. “Having all the relevant content for a project in one place and integrated with Google’s real-time document collaboration suite is genius.”

For more information visit www.capturetocloud.com.


Facebook, Frost & Sullivan, Research, Social, Twitter, Web Filtering, YouTube

How Web Content Filtering is Affected by Social Networking

Research and Markets has added Frost & Sullivan’s new report “Analysis of Global Web Content Filtering Market” to their offering. anylises

The prevention of malware exposure, content liabilities, and meeting government compliance has grown significantly in demand in the last three years. However, vendors are in a constant state of competition in which acquisitions, partnerships, volatile rebranding, consolidation, and aggressive pricing structures have created global strategic and tactical marketing. Cloud solutions have become a disruptive technology for on-premise appliances where cloud solutions are seen as a new way to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and capital expenditures (CAPEX). Mobile and remote devices are becoming a new paradigm for corporate environments with laptops, tablets, and smartphones as a major concern.

-Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook and Twitter, along with a growing establishment of new Web sites, opened new channels for malware distributors to perform malicious attacks.

-Organizations face the complexity of managing evolving malware, maintaining productivity, and meeting compliance.

-Number of malicious sites identified each day, percent of legitimate sites compromised by malware distributors.

-Employees have become a liability to an organization’s security; throughout 2011 major corporations experienced security breaches as a result of Web 2.0 Web site access.

-Access to inappropriate content such as pornography, violence, and racism can create litigations and lawsuits that could range in the millions of dollars.

-Loss of productivity remains a top concern with executives, where content management becomes highly complex and laborious.

-Social networking sites can cause productivity concerns because of cyber slacking activities.

-Large enterprises seek solutions offering simplified, single-console management features that can control a large number of devices and users.

-Web content filtering vendors must address requirements presented by legacy systems, different platforms, and a variety of information technology (IT) environments in enterprises.

-Additional features such as data loss prevention (DLP), antivirus, and network optimization tools are becoming increasingly integrated within secure Web gateway solutions.

-Cloud computing, or software-as-a-service (SaaS) Web content filtering solutions, provide SME’s with low total cost of ownership (TCO) and efficient offsite filtering abilities.

-Partnerships with major Web 2.0 sites and major acquisitions of smaller security vendors indicate a new trend in achieving market leadership and penetration.

-Frost & Sullivan believes convergence of Web content filtering with additional security solutions will become the new paradigm within the next five years.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/2mgc9n/analysis_of_global


Facebook, Social, Social media, Social network, Twitter

Sgrouples.com Launches Public Beta, Targets ‘Facebook Fatigue’

Sgrouples, Inc. (www.sgrouples.com)  launched into public beta today offering a private alternative to the social network, and a robust suite of services it hopes will make it an all-in-one tool for weary Web users.

Sgrouples’ free custom dashboard lets users create private personal groups, import and manage their social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and provides personal cloud storage.

“We believe social network fatigue, particularly over privacy, and demand for personal clouds, will be the key driving forces in the social space over the next one to two years,” said Mark Weinstein, founder and CEO of Sgrouples, and an early pioneer of Web 2.0 services. “As the Facebook IPO is this week, we feel that now is the perfect time to launch the all-in-one Sgrouples service, which offers an antidote to large social platforms like Facebook by building true privacy into the user model – no tracking, no profiling and no sharing of personal information.”

Weinstein is a 15-year veteran of social media, before it even existed as an Internet category. He was the founder of SuperGroups, which in 1999 was hailed by CNN, Time, Bloomberg News and Dow Jones, among others, and was a popular precursor to today’s social networks and community sites.

“I’ve followed Sgrouples for nearly a year,” said Colin Sebastian, director, equity research, for RW Baird. “Their leadership and development team have incredible vision and are making terrific progress. Moreover, the company is an early mover in addressing growing consumer concerns about social platform overwhelm and user privacy.”

“Privacy by design” is a key selling point for Sgrouples.com, which offers an unprecedented level of protection in its user bill of rights (https://sgrouples.com/privacy), patent-pending permission tool and transparent privacy policy. As Weinstein points out, Sgrouples.com does not track, monitor or profile its users, and no personal information will ever be gathered or shared with third party companies.

“It’s our belief that users are growing tired of large platforms like Facebook, and are ready to migrate towards smaller, more exclusive communities that can offer real privacy and trust in the social experience,” said Weinstein. “We want to re-engineer the social experience by allowing users to connect in a closer way with people they know, in a private platform they trust. Our goal is to create one private place, with a robust suite of services, where people can come to organize all of their real life communities.”

Sgrouples.com is a free all-in-one suite of services that combines many popular features on the Web in one easy-to-use place. From a single user-friendly dashboard, members can start their own private groups; manage their Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts; and enjoy a personal cloud to save and share photos, documents and important files.

Key features of the site include:

  • Privacy bill of rights – no tracking, no profiling, no sharing of
    personal information
  • Patent-pending permission tool (GroupAuthTM) lets users
    control their privacy settings
  • Private custom user groups
  • Cloud storage with My CloudTM (4GB free at sign-up, up to
    10GB free with sharing)
  • Social network aggregator in one easy-to-use dashboard
  • Organize and share favorite links with Check It OutTM
  • Event calendars users can create and share with others
  • Upcoming features: photo printing, apps and games, and Sgrouples Mobile