Aconex Blog Central

Unlike 4Projects which last month seemingly suspended its blog and Twitter presence, Australia-based SaaS construction collaboration technology vendor Aconex looks to be about to launch a more committed Web 2.0 presence. It has created a new blog site, Blog Central, as:

“a single spot for sharing the latest news on Aconex technology, products, customers, and the industry. The hub is the home of our blogs, resource for sharing good practices in online project collaboration, and a candid forum for you to engage in real conversation.”

It draws threads together from previous blogs, some of which were latterly used only sporadically (for example, Built on Collaboration had only six posts last year, much reduced on its 2009 output). It is also aiming to be a channel for “other influencers and thought leaders in the Construction, Engineering, and Energy & Resources industries”, with Aconex calling for some “lively interaction”.

I suspect this new site is still at an early stage – the URL currently points to a staging address “http://aconex-blogs.staging.reactive.com” at international digital agency Reactive Media – and it isn’t (yet) linked from the main Aconex website (the existing blog link in the Aconex.com site map still points at Built on Collaboration). Also, there is a link to a new Aconex community page on Facebook which is practically empty (currently just two ‘likes’ – compared to 370 for its product/service page). However, the Aconex YouTube page is more mature; it currently features 29 uploads which have accumulated nearly 28,000 views.

It certainly seems like Aconex is about to embrace social media much more concertedly, though it is not the only firm that has been developing its Web 2.0 presence over, say, the past 21 months (ie: since I wrote about Extranet vendors getting social). Asite created a user community in June 2009 (post), for example, but both it and Aconex still lag behind their younger UK-based rival Woobius whose management team remain enthusiastic bloggers and Tweeters (making them one of my front-runners in last year’s Construction Computing Best Use of Social Media category – post).

Update (08 April 2011) – Seems like what I wrote about earlier this week was “work in progress”. The look and feel of Aconex Blog Central has been polished and it’s no longer accessed via a ‘staging’ URL. The links to the different categories are now big graphical buttons, and an “industry voices” news feed has been added. There is also a new ‘Blog Central’ tab on the navigation of the main Aconex website. Much better, guys 🙂