ON24 Announces Enterprise Social Networking Widget Family
New Application Widgets Extend Virtual Training and Collaboration Capabilities
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – September 13, 2012 – ON24, Inc., the global leader in webcasting and virtual event solutions, today announced a new family of enterprise social networking widgets. Integrated within ON24 platform 10, the new Salesforce.com Chatter, VMware Socialcast and Microsoft Yammer widgets significantly enhance the social networking capabilities of online events powered by ON24, including webcasts, virtual shows and virtual briefing centers.
“Social media is playing an increasingly important role in enhancing the effectiveness of enterprise webcasting,” said Steve Vonder Haar, senior analyst with Wainhouse Research. “By providing tools that enable the integration of enterprise social media applications, such as Chatter, Socialcast and Yammer, ON24 is supplying solutions that make it easier for employees to be engaged with virtual events and corporate webcasts.”
In addition, ON24 is releasing a Cover Flow widget designed especially for virtual training. It enables the addition of a playlist of on-demand videos to a webcast and features a carousel-style presentation that creates a visual content library. The widget allows the audience to browse thumbnail images of the videos and then play them immediately within the webcast environment, increasing engagement and helping to deliver a cohesive story by providing relevant background and/or refresher information.
“With these new widgets, we are enhancing the power of virtual communications solutions for enterprise business applications,” said Tom Masotto, vice president of product management at ON24. “Our focus is on building widgets to support employee training and collaboration specifically.”
The new widgets join an existing widget line-up of more than 30 application widgets that support ON24’s “One Widget, Any Platform” architecture, designed and built to extend virtual event reach and engagement. ON24 offers widgets for applications ranging from breakout sessions and collaborative idea brainstorming to integration with social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. ON24 widgets are based on Flash technology, and ON24’s open architecture means that third-party developers can create and add their own application widgets for the ON24 platform.
Specific features and functions of ON24’s new widgets include:
- Salesforce.com Chatter: allows webcast attendees to log in and see their Chatter stream within the webcast environment. They can view different feeds, add comments, share the webcast link with Chatter followers and search for relevant information in their network. Employees can also filter updates by group or company.
- VMware Socialcast: enables employees to retrieve Socialcast streams and display them within the ON24 webcast environment. Users can add comments, tag messages and post messages within the Home Stream, Company Stream, @Mentions Stream and Private Messages Stream.
- Microsoft Yammer: enables the retrieval and display of Yammer feeds within the ON24 environment. Users can comment and post and bookmark messages, as well as toggle between different Yammer communities. This is the social enterprise solution of choice for companies that seek the best Microsoft integration.
- Cover Flow: increases viewer engagement by presenting a library of videos via a single access point. Thumbnail images are presented to the end user in a carousel style, and a “play button” is presented as the user navigates/mouses over the thumbnail, enabling the user to click and play a video instantly.
“The depth and breadth of the ON24 solution continue to define the virtual communications market,” commented Masotto. “No other company can deliver the scalability and performance of ON24, and no other provider has ON24’s suite of products and the open Platform 10 widget architecture. This combination delivers a unique set of tools designed to empower our customers – enabling them to create engaging virtual events and environments that deliver maximum value and ROI.”
About ON24, Inc.
ON24, the virtual communications platform for the global enterprise, provides interactive, impactful cloud-based solutions that drive outstanding results. ON24 offers a broad and innovative product portfolio, including webcasting, virtual events and virtual environments, accessible from any device and supported by robust reporting and analytics. Applications for the ON24 platform include demand generation, partner enablement, training, product launches, company town hall meetings and user conferences. More than 700 organizations, including IBM, CA Technologies, Merck, Unilever, JPMorgan Chase, Deloitte, Credit Suisse, Amazon and New York Life, rely on ON24. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices throughout the world. For more information, visit https://www.ON24.com.