Established in 2002, Socialtext, a Bedford Funding portfolio company (which also owns Peoplefluent), was one of the first companies to deliver social networking software to businesses. Socialtext’s enterprise social networking products—including microblogging, blogs, wikis, profiles, and social spreadsheets—provide more efficient and simpler ways for employees to share vital information and work together in real-time. Delivered in the cloud or securely behind the firewall as an appliance, Socialtext customers can be provided with flexible deployment options that meet their security requirements.

After the recent partnership with Badgeville for gamification capabilities, this week Socialtext announced its distribution partnership with Winvale, one of the premier government-focused solutions providers in the United States. After multi-year success implementing the Socialtext software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform with government agencies, the offering will now be available through Winvale’s General Services Administration (GSA) Schedules.

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Like it or not, gamification is here to stay and help bolster user engagement. Employee engagement has become the holy grail in private companies and government agencies, as numerous studies show that engaged employees are far more productive, and stay longer than their non-engaged peers. Companies are increasingly using gamification to reward and recognize both their trading partners and their employees.

When gamification capabilities are added to social software, the idea is for companies to access data and analytics that should provide much needed insight into employee behavior, and then reward employees in a way that increases their commitment to what they are doing while also keeping them aligned with company goals. To that end, Socialtext, a renowned provider of enterprise social software, announced its partnership with Badgeville, the leading gamification and behavior management platform, to infuse gamification capabilities into its variety of applications, widgets, and mobile tools.

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