READWRITEWEB — If the general trend toward crowdsourcing is any clue, then we are all well aware of the value of the Internet masses. Having access to a loyal fan base can be like a fount of free ideas and labor. From translating Wikipedia and Facebook to beta testing Google Chrome, crowdsourcing is used all across the Web for a number of purposes and analyst firm Forrester is suggesting one more - co-creation. According to a report released this week, U.S. consumers a willing "co-creators", a fact that many companies have yet to take advantage of...

DACHIS GROUP COLLABORATORY — The blurring of the lines between the consumer Internet and the business world has continued apace this year. I’ve begun referring to this phenomenon as CoIT when it happens in the workplace, but that’s not quite the full story either. What has happened is that social media has become one of the biggest mass changes in global behavior in a generation (since the advent of the Internet itself.) Over the last few years, the meme around social has filtered down into countless activities and processes across the business world, giving rise to now significant trends like Enterprise 2.0, Social CRM, customer communities, and so on. Keeping track of all this has officially become a full-time job and those just getting familiar with the Social Business world have a lot to absorb to get oriented. To help with keeping up with the fast moving pace of Social Business, we’ve created a useful new model aimed at helping you stay up-to-date with the major moving parts of Social Business today. We define Social Business here as the distinct process of applying social media to meet business objectives...

TECHCRUNCH — Two weeks ago on TechCrunch I posted "The Facebook Imperative," which posed a simple question, "Why isn’t all enterprise software like Facebook?" It was the next iteration of the question I asked in 1999 that spawned salesforce.com, "Why isn’t all enterprise software like Amazon.com." If you have read my book, Behind The Cloud, you are well aware how that one question launched a company, and a movement. Its been an exciting decade. But the real excitement is just starting. Frankly, I’ve been amazed by the huge amount of responses, tweets, and comments (aka "the ruckus across the blogoshere," as Joe McKendrick calls it). It only strengthens my conviction that we are about to see the greatest revolution in enterprise software, ever. Well, really, the most exciting revolution in computing, ever...

READWRITEWEB — Yammer is opening up its microbogging platform. In "Yammer Community" people may now create a community without the requirement that an email address be associated with a particular domain. This is a big change for Yammer. Many companies do not have their own domains. Opening up the platform means that the service is open to a much larger audience - and has created a much wider place for itself in the enterprise...

TECHCRUNCH — Today, Bantam Live, is launching the commercial version of its social CRM workspace and is rolling out premium features of its product. Bantam Live provides an online workspace for business teams that has "social CRM" features, which include a real-time dashboard stream of messaging and workflow activity along with a native CRM application. Members can share information, track activity, and manage contact and company relationships both inside and outside the organization via a real-time activity stream...