While Facebook scales to 500 million users according "The Social Network" movie promos, a new social network wants to prove to the world that IT pros have just as much a right to their own social network as common folk – maybe more.
The new kid on the block is called 48Upper. It’s describing itself as "a revolution," and it comes with a "manifesto" which declares that IT professionals "lived with the stereotype of being introverted, pessimistic loners for too long."
48Upper Manifesto
Taking a walk on the ‘wild side,’ HP lets its hair down to introduce the social network to the online world, with this hilarious video.
In addition to its name which is taken from one of HP’s buildings at their headquarters in Cupertino, California, there are a number of differentiators that distinguishes 48Upper from mainstream social networks.
The new suite includes unified messaging, video and voice applications from HP and Microsoft, as well as HP-hosted virtual rooms for secure document sharing and online meetings. 48Upper is a set of on-demand IT productivity tools backed by an online community aimed at encouraging peer-to-peer interaction.
Delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS), 48Upper will be using queries to build up technology data-mined libraries. Subscribers will be able control how the technical information is shared and whether the data can be made public or kept private for internal use only.
To be useful to most IT professionals, HP says that the new database will not be limited to its own products and services, but the Palo Alto based company will allow IT staff to manage processes from a single source.
In fact, 48Upper is aimed at solving the problem of underperforming as well as disgruntled workers. According to an InfoWorld report, "a well-documented source of dissatisfaction among IT workers is an increased workload with little to no corresponding rise in pay. However, it is entirely possible that a secondary source is simply not having a cool, fun watering hole of their own."
So now that the IT crowd have their own social network, does that mean productivity will drop as predicted by companies that have banned Facebook and Twitter from the workplace for that very reason?
It’s been easy to associate social media with goofing off – but in the case of 48Upper, companies might be hard-pressed when the focus of the network is based on collaborative work goals. It will be interesting to see what major achievements surface as the result of the geek-squad communicating within their own walled garden.
If you want to join the revolution, you can sign up for the beta testing here. No assurance you’ll get in – but I think describing your ‘geekness’ in detail might help.
48Upper Beta sign up
