While searching for a piece that I had written about the concept of visual apps, "The Future of Software? Think Visual Apps," I found that I had written about a potential precursor to Salesforce Chatter back in October 2007.
In order for the Faceforce piece to make sense, you would have had to have read the previous paragraph on Twitter. Here’s an excerpt:
“Do you Twitter? When I first read about it, I thought the last thing the world needs is another time-wasting tool ... I already have Freecell for that. If this is the first time you’re reading about it, Twitter may be the best known of all of the microblogs, with people posting what appears to be only a series of random thoughts or activities (for example, one entry this morning read, “Friday morning and time for laundry.”).
After Mr. Martine and I talked about Fantastic Voyage, he asked me if I had ever used Twittervision, and when I said no, he showed it to me. This takes the Twitter posts and plots them on a map of the world. Every few microseconds, he would get posts from friends and strangers from across the globe.
As soon as I saw it, I had an Aha! moment. Could Procter & Gamble use a private version of Twittervision to track the success of a new product launch? Rather than e-mailing back to corporate, field representatives could log into a private site and post their findings after visiting a store. They can enter the early sales successes, note any competitive responses, and suggest ideas for improvement in real time. This would also be visible across the entire organization.”
OK, here’s the Faceforce piece:
Salesforce.com: Should we look for Faceforce next?
“I recently met with two executives from salesforce.com and opened the meeting with talk about the P&G idea. In addition to new product launches or campaigns, microblogs would also make great tools for either the start or end of a quarter. For example, at the beginning, reps could post their goals or targets, which could be text, voice, or even video. Throughout the quarter, they could provide updates on the status. Microblogs, which would be far more visually appealing and interactive than a portal or e-mail string, would be good tools for global account teams too.
We segued into a discussion of Facebook, the privately-held social networking site with the $15B valuation, thanks to Microsoft’s investment of $240M for a 1.6% stake. Last month, I had written that salesforce.com was not-so-quietly attempting to become the Facebook of the business world: a social network hub for collaboration.
If you haven’t joined, Facebook is a free service that allows you to stay in touch with classmates, coworkers, clients, and friends. The company makes its money by selling advertising on your page. While salesforce.com has attracted 35,300 companies and 900,000 users, Facebook has 60 million people signed up.
Where salesforce.com has 725 third-party applications on AppExchange, Facebook has more than 5,000 applications. Okay, we’re not comparing the same kinds of apples here, but, nonetheless, Facebook adds over 100 new applications every day, with more than 80% of Facebook clients having used at least one Facebook Platform application.
I could envision a salesforce.com community on Facebook. What if salesforce.com offered Faceforce, a social network for top sales and/or marketing people? It’s possible. After all, the salesforce.com execs had come to my office to talk about the new microedition for the wealth management industry, which are microvertical offerings for politics, venture capitalists, human services, insurance agency management, economic development, and microfinance.”
OK, so my idea was not exactly the same thing as Chatter. I hope you might find it interesting nonetheless.

