Huddle to partner with more social networks

UK collaboration firm Huddle will partner with two more social networking sites in the upcoming months, following the success of its partnership with professional networking site LinkedIn, launched in October 2008.

Huddle has provided LinkedIn members with online collaboration tools to share ideas, information and files through its Workspaces application. The application is designed as a lightweight add-on to the main Huddle.net site so LinkedIn members can add the functionality to their profile straight away.

Huddle chief executive, Alastair Mitchell, said the firm’s two new social network partners, that he could not name yet, will integrate a similar type of application.

He said LinkedIn had brought Huddle a significant number of new customers but because of the terms of the partnership, he could not divulge the exact increase in numbers Huddle had seen in the last six months.

Mitchell said social networking sites were partnering with Huddle rather than other collaboration application providers because it offers a “network profile” feature, where people can invite their contacts to join the site. “This appeals to social networking providers that work in the same way,” he said.

Mitchell also promised that from March, Huddle users will have access to free teleconferencing and web conferencing solutions that they can use within their workspaces. “Live collaboration is the next big thing!” he said.

Finally, Mitchell said Huddle is adding new collaboration with Microsoft Live Office and will support a large number of additional languages.

As well as gaining new users from social networking partnerships for its add-on tool, Huddle is keen to drive growth in its flagship application. On the Huddle blog yesterday, co-founder and director Andy McLoughlin, explained how users can easily access the full Huddle system from within their Workspaces application by clicking on a Get More icon.