Computerworld - SAN DIEGO -- Hugely popular social media networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn make many companies nervous about what their employees might inadvertently reveal to outsiders.
Business-oriented social networking tools, such as Yammer or those based on Microsoft's SharePoint or IBM's Lotus Collaboration platforms, have yet to catch fire. Their behind-the-firewall restrictions, while popular with bosses, make them less appealing to workers who want to connect with business partners or the general public.
Hashwork, a New York-based start-up, is offering a service that it hopes will bridge the gulf between personal and corporate microblogging.
"We want to help cure antisocial business disorder," said Wendell Lansford, co-founder of Hashwork, during an interview at the Demo conference on Tuesday.
Like Twitter, Hashwork is a free service that lets users write pithy status updates and attach files and images. Hashwork is already integrated with Twitter, so users can have their tweets automatically appear on their Hashwork feeds, and vice versa.
That feature is key to Hashwork's success, Lansford said, since it doesn't force hard-core Twitter users -- the start-up's hoped-for early adopters and evangelists -- to type their updates in more than one place.
The differences: At sign-up, Hashwork users are automatically put into a group associated with their company. Hashwork users can create more groups, either within their company or through interest/affinity groups outside of their employer. They can then choose which groups can read their messages. With Twitter, users can only choose whether all of their status updates are readable only by friends or by any user.
Hashwork is offering a variety of features designed to appeal to enterprise IT shops looking for greater control of social networking activity.
For example, IT administrators at companies with a $95-per-month Hashwork subscription have the ability to remove departed employees from groups. With the $495-per-month enterprise subscription, companies can set time delays on Hashwork posts so the messages can be reviewed before they appear online, and they can take back and delete employee posts.
Lansford acknowledged that some organizations are so secretive or heavily regulated -- investment banks and some government agencies, for instance -- that even a tool such as Hashwork, which encourages employees to network online while controlling their personal twittering, may not immediately appeal to them. But he maintained that with so many corporate workers already posting status updates on LinkedIn or Facebook, the trend is unstoppable.
Besides Yammer and the Microsoft and IBM tools, Hashwork also competes with offerings from Jive Software and Lithium Technologies Inc.
Lansford said Hashwork's public-private orientation beats the former group, and its more modern interface beats the latter.
The company plans to integrate its service with Facebook soon, Lansford said, and it hopes to give Twitter users finer control over which Hashwork groups can see their messages.
Lansford and co-founder Prakash Mishra started Hashwork without any outside financing, but they're looking for investors.
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