Imagine a world where email aliases are a thing of the past. Where anything you’ve ever messaged someone is easily accessible and searchable. Where meetings are reduced greatly, so you can actually get your work done. Where you could easily reach out to other staff to find solutions to problems, even if you don’t know they have that knowledge..

That world is here, now.

How can we arrive at this world, you may be asking? That answer is simple. StatusNet.

StatusNet is an Enterprise level, open source, web-based microblogging platform. Very similar to Twitter/Facebook (hashtags, direct messages, groups etc), but it can be hosted internally, and is customizable. (Increasing text limit, for example.) For those unfamiliar with the concept of microblogging, StatusNet has an excellent simple tour.

How this could work for your company

Imagine being able to follow specific hashtags. Some examples that come to mind are customers (#BobBoblaw, #Sony), products (#widget3, #turbowidget), or even technologies (#postgres, #linux).

Here’s an example:

Bob Hall on the second floor is having problems with a #postgres db, so he asks:

Having problems in #postgres getting it initialized so #turbowhidget can hit it. It’s at #CompanyX. Any ideas?

John Doe on the first floor follows the #postres hashtag, because he loves it so. Bob’s message pops up on his timeline, so he replies:

@bhall Have you checked your postgresql.conf that the listen addresses are correct? #postgres

Bob Hall has that reply pop up in his timeline, since he is mentioned (via @bhall). He didn’t know John was such a postgres whiz, and is happy he has the answer. But consider the secondary benefits.

• Anyone else who follows the #postgres tag will see these messages.
• Anyone who follows #CompanyX will also see this message (Think someone in Support on a ticket while Implementation is onsite)
• Anyone who searches postgres later will see this information
• Anyone who, later on, is having problems with the postgres installation at CompanyX could easily find this information

Email aliases go poof

With StatusNet, we wouldn’t need to create a new alias for every project and group that is created. A group could be made in StatusNet. How is that better than aliases, you might be pondering?

• Groups are in one place, you can search them
• Anyone can see a list of a groups members
• Members of a group can post a notice to that group. All other members of that group will see that notice in their timeline
• Anyone can send a message to a group, even if they aren’t a member via the bang. ‘!’ (ex. ‘Hey !IT the internal blog seems to be down‘)

Feeds for everything

StatusNet generates RSS feeds for every hashtag, user, and group. You don’t need to even necessarily keep StatusNet open, you can be pulling in a feed for those hashtags you want to follow, into the tools you already use. Integrate a hashtag you use into Insight.

Notifications

By default a user is notified via email when someone mentions or sends a message to that user. The user can also decide to configure their account so they receive notifications on their cell phone.

3rd Party Apps

There’s an app for that, seriously. PCs, (Windows, Mac, Linux), iPhone, Android, and the list goes on. If we allow external access to our StatusNet, a user can easily connect and update from anywhere, if they choose to.

Extras

Besides the functionality mentioned, there are other features we can activate. Be able to attach a file to your notice, post a bookmark, make a poll, etc.

Summary

I hope this encourages the reader to check out StatusNet if they haven’t already. The things it can do for a companies internal communication are amazing.