NewsGator Boosts Social Computing Capabilities of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007

NewsGator Technologies, Inc., the leading RSS company, announced at the Web 2.0 Conference today the general availability of NewsGator Social Sites , an add-on to the NewsGator Enterprise Server (NGES) that enhances the social computing capabilities for the market leading Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. NewsGator Social Sites enables easy discovery of the core element of collaboration within a business -- seeing what colleagues within an organization are doing and making easy connections between people.

NewsGator Social Sites is a collection of site templates, profiles, Web parts and infrastructure that integrates directly with SharePoint Server 2007's existing architecture and security models. Social Sites works in conjunction with NGES to make SharePoint 2007 an Enterprise 2.0 destination. Key capabilities include:

--  Delivering Content into SharePoint Server 2007: Instead of
    "reinventing the wheel" by manually adding content, administrators can
    bring in RSS feeds from outside of SharePoint Server 2007. Fresh content
    provides a better user experience and increases SharePoint Server 2007
    utilization. Users can mark items as read, filter by tags and subscribe to
    the underlying feeds with one click;
--  Syndicating Content from SharePoint Server 2007: With one-click
    subscriptions for all SharePoint Server 2007 feeds, users can keep up with
    updates or changes from their desktop, e-mail client or mobile device and
    know when they need to return to SharePoint Server 2007;
--  Improving User Interaction: Eliminating a common complaint that portal
    content isn't "fresh," NewsGator Social Sites lets users mark calendar
    items, announcements, document links and other static list items as read,
    so they only see new items when they return. The AJAX interface reduces
    page load times and tagging encourages participation. The "Social Sites"
    rollup view also facilitates content discovery in SharePoint by showing the
    most active users as well as "colleagues," allowing users to quickly assess
    the most popular content, feed trends and tag clouds;
--  Connecting People with Content: NewsGator Social Sites improves
    expertise discovery and collaboration. By clicking on a link for the
    content author or tagger, the user sees an in-line profile with their
    contact information, blog and wiki entries, articles and feeds that they
    read, tag and recommend. In a single glance, the user can discover areas of
    focus for another person without requiring any extra data entry -- the
    reading and publishing behavior of a user is presented in a single view.

"We built SharePoint as an extensible platform, one where our existing features such as social networking can be augmented by our partners," said Derek Burney, SharePoint general manager at Microsoft. "NewsGator Social Sites enhances SharePoint's very popular and successful social computing and enterprise search capabilities. We are excited about our continued collaboration with NewsGator to deliver value to our mutual customers."

At Spencer Stuart, one of the country's largest and oldest executive search firms, ensuring that researchers and search consultants have easy, consolidated access to many sources of information is of critical importance. "NewsGator Social Sites will significantly enhance the value of our SharePoint Sites," said Trapper Markelz, senior manager of application development at Spencer Stuart. "It will allow us to present both internal and external information in a single team site with greatly enhanced navigation. Social Sites will also increase the visibility of these resources through notifications that drive users directly back to the lists that are most valuable to them."

"Companies of all sizes are turning to Microsoft SharePoint as the foundation for social computing and Enterprise 2.0 ," said Dave Keller, general manager, Enterprise for NewsGator. "NewsGator Social Sites builds on this foundation and delivers additional components for driving SharePoint portal usage and widespread collaboration."

NewsGator Social Sites 1.1 is currently available. For more information, visit www.newsgator.com .

About NewsGator Enterprise Server

NewsGator Enterprise Server is a revolutionary product for aggregating and syndicating high-value business information within the enterprise. It allows companies to leverage the power of Web 2.0 social media technologies while providing enterprise-class security, manageability and scalability. With its powerful search, collaboration and administrative capabilities, organizations can easily deploy the latest social software tools and ensure relevant information automatically reaches each employee based on their specific needs and responsibilities.

About NewsGator Technologies, Inc.

NewsGator Technologies is the world's leading RSS company. Headquartered in Denver, Colo., NewsGator develops and markets RSS aggregation solutions for individual end users, enterprises and online content providers. Using NewsGator products and solutions, businesses and consumers can subscribe to news, information, podcasts and other relevant content more efficiently and effectively than with traditional channels. With NewsGator, users have access to RSS information via the Web, Microsoft Outlook, mobile devices and both Windows- and Mac-based desktop clients. All NewsGator products synchronize seamlessly, enabling users to read their RSS feeds anywhere, anytime, with any device. For more information, visit www.newsgator.com .