IDeaS Solicits Them

We often think of social networking in mostly, well, social terms, so it’s important to remind ourselves that the medium has decidedly business-focused applications. 

IDeaS Revenue Optimization in May began offering a platform known as IDeaShare, which uses social networking as a basis for improving its product functionality. Here’s a press release on it; I can’t link directly to the social network, since it’s closed to those of us who aren’t IDeaS clients.

IDeaShare works kind of like the popular site Digg, which lets users promote (or demote) Web articles to get them increased exposure. A better comparison, however, would be with Dell’s IdeaStorm. Similarities in name aside, IDeaShare and IdeaStorm both invite users to post public suggestions on how to improve a product’s functionality—popular items are bumped up by the community, and all the while other users can weigh in with their thoughts on the topic. 

Dell has implemented dozens of ideas from its virtual suggestion box over the years, and while IDeaS only launched recently, it already has about 600 registered users discussing more than 450 ideas.