Socialcast

I am a big fan of crunchy things. Cashews. Live pumpkin seed bars from Whole Foods. Cocoa Puffs. Now, I am excited to ask for your help to make Socialcast just as “Crunchie” as all of these.

Last night we learned that Socialcast was nominated as one of five final contenders in the “Best Bootstrapped Startup of 2008” category for the 2^nd annual Crunchie Awards. We are really excited to be recognized for the blood, sweat, and tears that our team has put into growing our company this year. Watching the company thrive organically has been truly rewarding, and we hope that you’ll lend your votes to us in this awesome competition.

So – if you’re a fan of Socialcast, cast your vote for us here: http://crunchies2008.techcrunch.com/votes/ (ours is the second category). You can vote once a day through January 5th.

Thanks to everyone who helped us get nominated, and thanks in advance to everyone who has (and will) vote for Socialcast this week!

It was on one of my many trips to San Francisco this year that the need for an iPhone optimized Socialcast site became clear. I was sitting in a taxi, slightly tired from my flight yet still focused on getting work done during these 30 minutes of solitude. I needed to check in with my team about the status of some new features, but the three people who had all the facts were in Irvine, San Diego, and Minneapolis. Clearly, I just didn’t have access to the information I needed.

Up until that point, my iPhone had been my lifeline on business trips. I used it to find restaurants, tell the Enterprise Rent a Car tow truck the exact intersection where my sedan had broken down at 11pm, entertain myself with games while in the back various taxis, and catch up emails. Now, I needed it to connect me in real time with people all across the United States, but I couldn’t. It frustrated me to no end.

At Socialcast, we use our own software all day long to share information. It is the single most important tool that we use day and night. I desperately needed iPhone access to our internal community, and I didn’t have it. Thus, the very next day, we began optimizing Socialcast for iPhone usage.

I have talked to countless clients and partners who have been in these very same situations – desperately needing information but not having the tools to access it. We all work remotely in some way, and we recognize that business isn’t simply an 8-5 operation. When you need data, you need data, regardless of if you’re at your desk, on vacation, at a client meeting, or sitting in the back of a taxi. That’s why we launched our iPhone compatible Socialcast site. We want our clients to have seamless, consistent access to their community at any time. It’s that simple.

The development of our Socialcast software over the past two years has given us a living, breathing application that’s evolving on a daily basis. As we’ve molded the system to fit our vision, we’ve constantly tried to focus on integrating other web feeds, services, and software that you already use.  We believe that employees have a lot of offer their companies via these outside services. Therefore, we’re pleased to announce the launch of three new services and applications that allow you to work smarter and share information more easily via email, while browsing the web, or from your instant messaging platform.

Update Your Status with Jabber (beta)

Send IM messages to the Jabber Socialcast bot to update your Status or Worklog within your community. Many employees stay logged into Jabber all day, but they don’t do the same with a web browser. This Jabber integration lets you keep your working habits the same while enabling rapid information sharing with a quick IM message. 

The Socialcast Gmail Plugin (beta)

Create a real-time sidebar display of your community’s activity directly inside your Gmail inbox by installing the Gmail plugin for Firefox. You’re going to be checking your emails at some point, but that shouldn’t prevent you from staying on top of new information inside your community. This plugin lets you view and rapidly respond to information without having to abandon those 42 unread messages.

The Socialcast Bookmarklet

This is an old tool that’s made a comeback recently. The Socialcast Bookmarklet makes it easy to share links and update your status from your Favorites tab. Again, we know you simply can’t always be logged into your community, so this provides a quick way to share information with your team at the moment you discover a useful link.

There are definitely more features coming soon, including an Outlook plugin that is on its way. If you have any other ideas for new features, please let us know. And, anyone who is going to Defrag this week – I’d love to meet you, so please feel free to track me down introduce yourself!

We believe that email can suck the productivity out of business. We believe that every employee can and should make meaningful contributions to your company. We believe that enterprise communication is fundamentally broken. That’s what we’re here to fix.

Today we’re launching the most important, exciting and fundamentally powerful upgrade to our enterprise software that addresses these challenges. We’ve deployed our new Enterprise Social Messaging system that allows teams, entire companies, departments, and workgroups to organize, shape and share information more effectively. Some have called it a “Twitter for the Enterprise,” and we think that’s a pretty great analogy.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out our software to companies big and small. Check back frequently for updates, news, and more – and we invite you to sign up and try out Socialcast for free for 30 days. We are excited to get your feedback so we can continue to develop Socialcast into a tool that helps solve your communication and knowledge sharing challenges.