Tibco Tibbr takes the witter out of Twitter

Tibco has unveiled Tibbr, a social networking tool aimed at business users.

The success of Twitter as a messaging medium and its widespread adoption is an obvious parallel for Tibbr's development but the similarities are superficial.

In an interview at the Tucon 2010 user conference in Las Vegas, Vivek Ranadiv, Tibco's chairman and chief executive, said, "Tibbr is based on subscribing to subjects and machines rather than people, unlike conventional social utilities. Information finds people rather than the other way round."

Information on the system is generated by people, rather like Twitter, but hardware and software systems can also generate reports and alerts. Subject areas are created and any subscribed user receives new posts as soon as they are posted. Rather than the randomness of Twitter posts, the user gets contextual messages that are relevant to their business roles and projects.

Ranadiv also pointed out that there is no reason why a topic area has to be business-focused. "People with common interests and hobbies can form their own discussion feeds," he explained. "This makes Tibbr a virtual replacement for the chats around the water cooler that establish personal links between employee," he said. "With distributed groups and people working from home, this will help to establish a corporate community and friendships that keep people loyal to the company they work for and prevent staff churn."

Another side of Tibbr was evident at Tucon where it was used to keep the delegates informed of news and events. It also allowed attendees to comment on all aspects of the convention.

At present, Tibbr can be accessed using a PC or an iPhone but other mobile device apps are being developed.