Interact-Intranet 5.1 new features revealed

Earlier today I attended the Interact Intranet 5.1 release announcement webinar and am a little upset because I got distracted at a few key points by work issues and wasn't able to catch every point that was made!  Luckily at the end of the webinar they announced that the recording will be made available soon and that there will be a more in-depth follow-up webinar on July 12th to cover the new features and product enhancements.  (I'll add those links as I get them).  The new version will be released on Wednesday June 27, 2012.

Upcoming dates:
July 11th, 2012 Interact Intranet 5.1: What every intranet manager should know  (webinar)

New widgets

• YouTube
• place it on the page, add the URL and up comes the video
• automatic sizing depending on where you place the widget
• you add a single video, and add other videos to a queue
• Questions: 
• can you add a channel or favorites feed?
• can this widget display videos from the media manager?
• are these videos indexed for search purposes?
  
• Google
• allows you to add map points through the widget
• works in the US
  
• Question: 
• can you add a map created in google maps? or does it only allow you to add a blank map and add points via the widget?
• is there a limit to the number of points you can add?

• Translator
• works in real time on full content of the intranet
• 37 different languages, Welch not included
• backend is Microsoft Translator, not Babelfish
• the translator works on all text, documents, forums
• Question:
• from what I could see it doesn't appear to be tied to your profile language, instead it seemed to require you to change languages via a portlet.  Is that accurate?

• Rotating banner
• "incredibly useful because homepage is the most valuable real estate. This is the place that everyone will look"
• it stops if you mouse over it
• it is a free text widget which uses regular HTML, or an image
• you can control the rotating speed and length of time each image stays on the screen

New & enhanced tools

• Activity Management
• this area had a lot of focus in the webinar and unfortunately is the area I payed the least attention to because of work needs
• activities go live when the document goes live
• categorization of staff for assigning activities is done in an advanced search area and lets you select based upon things such as location, department, etc.
• it work with teams 
• Watch the demo
  

• Profile completeness score

 

• Improved blogging tools
• ability to subscribe to blogs 
• Question: 
• What is the difference between subscribing vs following?
• Is there a way to manage all subscriptions or would one need to visit each blog to selectively unsubscribe if they wanted?
• What is the process for subscription notification, email or alerts I assume?
• Mobile app
• integrated filtered content based upon your location 

 

• Improved authentication
• ability to reset AD passwords w/ password strength rules
• Widget selector
• There is a new widget selector tool to help homepage managers select widgets. Details about the widget, display of latest widgets.

Coming soon: Integrations with...

• MailChimp
• MailChimp helps you design email newsletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services you already use, and track your results. It's like your own personal publishing platform. 
• Basecamp
•  web-based project management and collaboration tool

Something I didn't know, Rackspace can be used for hosting of Interact.