Today, Leverage Software, a leading provider of online social-networking and community solutions, released a new set of enhancements to its CustomerConnectTM and EventConnectTM products.
The latest release adds significant enhancements for end-users, including group and forum discussion improvements, integrated scheduling and calendaring functionality enhancements, and
the ability to see others who are 's8216;online now's8217;. Leverage Software's8217;s Release 5.2 includes:
Enhanced Groups and Forum Discussion Functionality
Groups have been extended to encourage participation and user adoption by making groups more discoverable both inside and outside of the system. In addition, forum discussions may now be
subscribed to through both email and RSS.
Features to Encourage Participation and User Adoption
New features have been added to make a community more open, visible, and viral, including showing 's8216;Online Now's8217; when community members are logged into the system at the same
time as you. More prominent 's8216;photo upload's8217; placement will encourage the uploading of pictures during the profile set up process, enhancing the user experience. When members
put the new QuickConnect card on their blogs, in signature files or any external location, community members become community recruiters.
Improved Scheduling and Calendar Functionality
Based on customer feedback, a number of calendar features have been added to make it easier to manage a large number of onsite meetings, to improve overall reporting, to manage meeting
rooms or other physical locations, and to make it easier for end users to set up peer-to-peer meetings.
Administration Features
Features have been added to make it easier for community administrators to report upon and export their data, as well as provide the ability for administrators to grant rights to other
administrators.
's8220;We are continuously seeking ways to make our communities even more vibrant, to create a sense of urgency and to encourage participation,'s8221; said Mike Walsh, CEO and founder of
Leverage Software. 's8220;In direct response to the feedback that we receive from our customer base and users within Leverage Software communities, we are very excited about the
enhancements to discussions and groups, the addition of Presence -- the ability to see who in your community is online at the same time as you, and the QuickConnect cards which make our
communities more viral. Our clients whom host these communities are very excited about the new administrative features, giving them even more flexibility, and the enhanced interactive
search and profile export capabilities, making it even easier to export data from the system and mine it for insight.'s8221;
's8220;True to the Leverage Software way,'s8221; said Joseph Kleinschmidt, CTO and founder, 's8220;we have launched another set of functionality that demonstrates our ongoing commitment
to user-centered design's8212;intuitive, elegant interfaces for both end-users users and administrators. And with our hosted, software-as-a-service model, all these enhancements are
immediately available within the hundreds of communities powered by our software.'s8221;
These newly released features are additive to Leverage Software's8217;s already robust social-networking and community platform which is powering the communities of over 100 companies
across many industries. Features of the core platform include member profile space, online matchmaking and community visualization tools, ability to request introductions and set up
meetings, robust groups functionality and threaded discussions, networking calendar functionality, email and RSS notifications, a collaborative space for media file sharing, a targeted
messaging platform and revenue-generating sponsorship engine, and robust customer analytics on the back-end.
About Leverage Software
Leverage Software is the leader in enterprise-class social networking and community solutions, powering the online communities for over 100 companies in technology, media, consumer
products, financial services and pharmaceutical industries including Microsoft, HP, Sun, SAP, Autodesk, Salesforce.com Charles Schwab, McKesson, VNU, IDG, Dow Jones and The New York
Times. With two innovative products's8212;CustomerConnectTM for ongoing communities of purpose and EventConnectTM for extending the life of your face to face events's8212;Leverage
Software helps companies improve customer loyalty, build stronger brands, drive word-of-mouth marketing, innovate faster and listen to customers like never before. The Leverage Community
Platform empowers customers to create online communities where they can meet, build relationships, share ideas, contribute content, and learn from one another, while giving companies a
way to drive incremental revenue through incremental sponsorships and targeted cross-sell messaging, increase customer satisfaction and retention, and glean valuable customer insight.
Leverage Software is based in San Francisco and on the web at www.leveragesoftware.com.