open-source
(6)
Your Community Platform Is Either A Home Or A Listening Post
Open Social and CMNTY are both Dutch, both say they build community, and both are right - one hands you a network you own, the other turns a crowd's opinions into research data. Here is why the same word points at two very different businesses.
Everyone wants a community. Almost nobody owns theirs
Six platforms - from open-source Discourse to enterprise Khoros and Salesforce - are quietly fighting over the same thing: the conversations your customers have about you. Building that crowd turns out to be the easy part. Owning it is where it gets expensive.
NodeBB Bet on the Open Web While Its Rivals Got Bought
While AnswerHub was swallowed by a holding company and the alumni-community market consolidated, this Toronto-built open-source forum wired itself straight into the fediverse. NodeBB's wager is that the open web outlasts the walled garden.
How Surveys Escaped the Phone Bank and Got Into Your App
Survox, LimeSurvey, Typeform and PostHog trace a 50-year shift in how the world asks questions - from punch cards and phone banks to forms that feel like chat and surveys that pop up mid-click.
Live Chat Software Can't Agree Where Your Chats Should Live
Userlike, LiveHelpNow, Social Intents and Rocket.Chat all put a chat box on your website. The interesting part is what happens to the conversation after a visitor hits send.
Rocket.Chat Wires HubSpot Straight Into the Chat Window
The open-source messaging platform's HubSpot CRM app pipes leads, deals and support tickets into the conversation - so sales and support teams stop tab-hopping between the CRM and the chat where the customer actually is.