Two Startups Try Helping Companies Make Their Online Communities More Mobile
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There are plenty of mobile social networks for people to join, and most companies have at least developed specially-formatted landing pages to give users mobile access to their content. But there’s a gray area in the middle that’s currently being under-served in terms of mobile access: online forums and message boards. And for companies like National Instruments and HP, figuring out a way to bring mobile functionality to their active online communities has been a challenge.
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The WSJ profiles two late-stage startups that are trying to make money by helping companies bridge that gap: Lithium Technologies and Jive Software. Lithium is backed by $21 million in funding from Benchmark, Emergence Capital and Shasta Ventures; the company’s main focus is white-label social networking, but it plans to roll out a product that ports clients’ online communities to cell phones next year. Meanwhile, Sequoia-backed Jive has raised $25 million for its own enterprise-facing social networking tools, and the company recently launched an iPhone app that gives employees mobile access to their companies’ in-house networks.
Lithium’s technology already powers the social networking features for HP’s site, as well as AT&T (NYSE: T) and Best Buy—so getting its clients to pay up for the addition of mobile access to their online communities shouldn’t be difficult. As Philip Soffer, Lithium’s VP of product marketing told the Journal: “Because the community is active and based on addictive behavior, it’s the kind of thing that works well on mobile phone.” Lithium’s tools will work for both feature phones and smartphones.
Jive currently runs the online communities for National Instruments and Nike, among others, so it too, already has the track record and relationships to help boost adoption of its mobile offering. Jive differs from Lithium in that its mobile tools are geared specifically for smartphone users; SVP and CMO Ben Kiker told the Journal that the company focused on building tech for smartphones because it could “go deep with functionality.”
Posted In: Mobile, Social Media, Community, Companies, Apple, iPhone, jive software, lithium technologies
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