DNN Social, recently released by DotNetNuke enables users to interact with your site using a wide range of leading edge social capabilities such as gamification, analytics, ideation, FAQs, blogs, discussion forums and activity stream.
The gamification feature enables you to reward interaction with points, special privileges, badging, activity and contribution based recognition in addition to leaderboards that show users detailed points and rankings.
DNN Social includes data analytics and reporting that provides an ability to display metrics based on users, groups and all user generated content via an interactive dashboard. The dashboard elements enable administrators to identify trends and gather insights to influence desirable community behavior.
The Ideation feature enables you to allocate users a fixed set of votes that ensures prudent voting for the most valued ideas. It helps product developers to engage with their customers and solicit feedback to gather insights to improve products and services.
DNN Social provides ability for site administrators to create and host knowledge base with answers to commonly asked questions. According to official sources, Q&A can significantly reduce your customer service costs and build a more engaged community.
DNN Social includes a new blogging and discussion forum engine that is completely integrated with the activity stream. It also contains a completely redesigned activity stream which brings all aspects of the social site together in one place and is integrated with all the above mentioned features.
"We have a number of pilot customers leveraging the DNN Social today including SchoolDude," says Mike Earhart, Head of Strategic Marketing, DotNetNuke.
In an interview to InfoQ, Mike shares the benefits and features of DNN Social.
InfoQ: How does DNN Social benefit developers?
DNN Social enables developers to easily create and deploy communities directly on a business’s own Internet presence. Rather than driving users to Facebook or LinkedIn, DNN Social gives organizations the opportunity to keep visitors on their site, interacting with other users and consuming more content.DNN Social is very easy to use. Even sophisticated features like gamification and analytics can be easily incorporated into communities without the use of multiple platforms or applications.
InfoQ: How does DNN Social benefit end users?
DNN Social makes visiting a site more useful, interesting and satisfying. By providing a seamless experience that includes both content and community, DNN Social gives users fresh, up-to-the-minute information and the ability to share, discuss and comment on that information with other site users. People can recommend products and services, make suggestions and find answers to common questions - all sourced by other like-minded visitors.
InfoQ: What type of communities can be created and managed using DNN Social?
DNN enables a wide variety of communities. DNN customers can create destinations for discourse, product support, promotions, product ideation, crowd-sourced content and opinions. The type of community is entirely dependent on the goals of the site owner.
InfoQ: What is the benefit of Gamification?
Gamification provides a direct benefit to the site owner and a more indirect benefit to the site user. For the site owner, gamification can be utilized to keep users on the site longer, consuming more information, contributing more content and returning more often.For site users, gamification can contribute to the sense of satisfaction those users might feel when interacting with the site. Their loyalty might be rewarded, their opinions highlighted, and/or their participation and expertise acknowledged. We believe gamification, when thoughtfully applied, can be a very valuable tool to increase engagement and improve brand loyalty.
InfoQ: Can companies create a knowledge base using DNN Social with Q&A feature?
Absolutely. DNN Social can be used both to encourage user contributions and to store and surface contributions based on requests, quality of information, and the expertise of the contributor.
InfoQ: Will individuals/companies ever invest huge amount (around $11,999 per instance) to obtain DNN Social?
We've already seen substantial interest in DNN Social from businesses ranging in size from small to enterprise. Given the breadth of our offering, DNN Social is priced more aggressively than other solutions in the market and, we believe, is the most cost-effective way to quickly and easily add social communities to web sites.
