Ringside networks

Ringside Networks is focused on bringing the power of the Social Web directly to corporate websites and business applications. Ringside Networks provides the industry's first Social Application Server - a free and open source platform that enables global communities to connect and interact like never before. Funded by Matrix Partners, the private company was founded in 2008 in Marlton, NJ by former executives and developers from Bluestone Software and JBoss. Click here to see the excitement Ringside Networks is creating in the market.

Ringside Social Application Server is the first open source platform that enables website owners to build and deploy social applications that operate with existing website content and business applications while seamlessly integrating with social networks such as Facebook. Benefits of using Ringside Social Application Server include:

• Engage: Websites can move beyond simple personalization to social applications that accelerate meaningful user generated content - encouraging vibrant community dynamics.
• Viral: Website visitors participate in a network effect of interactions - resulting in relationships that are much more meaningful and long-lasting than search engine advertisements.
• Loyal: Customers transition from website visitors into active and ongoing contributors - improving both customer and brand loyalty.

Below is a video interview of Bob Bickel at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference. Thanks to John Eckman, Senior Director of Optaros Labs, who conducted the question and answer session focused on the relationship between open source and innovation, Ringside Network's business model, and the evolution of social networking functionality. Corresponding blog for this interview can be found at http://www.optaros.com/blogs/open-source-social-applications-bob-bickel-ringside-networks.

Ringside Networks is led by a team of middleware and open source veterans who previously worked together at Bluestone Software and JBoss.

• Bob Bickel
• Rich Friedman
• Jason Kinner
• Mark Lugert
• Rich Frisbie
• Shaun Connolly

Click here to find out more about our people.
Click here to find out more about our board of directors.

Spring 2007: Bob Bickel was building a website for his running store - www.runningco.com. He wanted to add social applications to the website - ways for runners to comment on races or post pictures, ways for runners to find others to run with, ways for runners to keep track of what was important to them and share that with others. Some of these things could be done at social networking sites like Facebook, but he wanted to weave these applications and features within his site - to engage users, add value to his customers and help create a community of likeminded people. There was nothing in the market that allowed him to do this easily.

Summer 2007: A small band of developers began working on the problems and opportunity of social networking for "the rest of us" beyond Facebook. We saw a huge shift in the need for almost every website to incorporate social features as an integral part of their website. We saw a huge need to "federate" websites and social information between multiple social networks. We saw that website business owners wanted to get these capabilities to increase traffic to their site, keep users there longer. And we saw people becoming engaged with social networking - beyond the initial college crowds on Facebook. Real businesses trying to increase customer loyalty by involving customers in their website - not simply as a billboard for company messages.

Fall 2007: David Skok of Matrix saw the opportunity to help build a company to address this next generation of the Web. Bickel and Skok had worked together to use the benefits of an open source business model to grow JBoss, and they both saw how an open source approach could help spur this new generation. Giving website owners the freedom to creatively add social applications, to integrate them with existing content and data, to open up connections with the large social networks like Facebook.

Winter 2008: Ringside becomes official. Now with its first round of funding, Ringside assembles a small group of dedicated professionals to build out the industry's first Social Application Server. The feedback has been amazing - it seems that everyone is trying to figure out what social can mean to them. Using our open source approach, we are looking forward to working with the rest of the industry to make social applications the next wave for the Web.

Spring 2008: Ringside Networks announces Beta availability of the Ringside Social Application Server in open source, and continues planning for upcoming releases and new functionality.