SharePoint Goes Social – New Social Media Features in SharePoint 2010

The wait is finally over! After 3+ years since the release of SharePoint 2007,  the much-anticipated SharePoint 2010 was successfully launched on May 12. There are many new remarkable features that many end users and developers have been asking for.  The social media features, in my opinion, are particularly impressive.

According to Christian Finn, Director of Collaborative Product Management, Microsoft aims to make SharePoint 2010 to be “as much about people as it is about documents.”.  The following new improvements are especially important toward that goal:

• Profile Page (former MySite in SharePoint 2007): clearly displayed on this page are 6 tabs, you might find they perform similar functions as some of the social media features you are already familiar with.
• Activity Feed: it’s much like the Facebook feed and displays real-time activities within the networking environment.
• “Ask Me About”: it allows you to interact with people by asking or answering questions from the right people.
• “Tags and Notes”: you can find it on the Profile Page. Much like tagging and making notes everywhere else, this feature will give you a clear view of what’s-hot-and-what’s-not within your network.

The days when developers scramble to build social media applications will soon be over. This squarely makes SharePoint a viable platform for social media. Keep up the good work, Redmond!

Helpful Links:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff631153.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff608137.aspx

Related Posts:

1. SharePoint 2010 Beta Hardware & Software Requirements