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Social networking isn't just big on the Internet, it's big on intranets, as well. This year has seen several young companies offering to harness the power of social computing for business. The newly launched Orbius delivers social networking power with complete granular control.

We spoke to C.H. Low, the founder and CEO of Orbius, about the new offering. Orbius began in May of 2007 when Low had the idea to deliver social tools to small- and mid-sized businesses, as well as other online communities. After raising investments and building his team, the company soft-launched in May of 2008 with a non-public version. They tested this early version with a few select customers until there were certain they're removed all the kinks. This November, Orbius launched with what Low thinks of as the 2.0 version.

In the already competitive world of social networking platforms for business, Orbius stands out with the degree of control it offers users. There aren't simply administrators and readers with Orbius: companies can designate people as editors, who can create content for the site. All members can comment on content, but only editors can post original content. It's a great fit for organizations that want a few gatekeepers to be in charge of what's posted to the site, but want everyone in the organization to have a voice. Low says that many of the companies and groups he's spoken with want limited posting options.

While it offers a rich set of features, Orbius takes no special skills to install and set up. The platform is built with easily customizable templates, so that users can get the look they want for their pages with little effort. There's no PHP or CSS needed, says Low, and users can customize their site with images.

Orbius offers users a set of modules that they can install as they choose. Low recommends that people start small, so that they and the rest of the company have time to get comfortable with the new system. The blog module is a good starting point, he says. Other modules include text pages, a comments widget that can be placed on any page, a discussion forum, survey tool, idea factory, a photo gallery, a wiki, a library, and a social database. The library offers a place for the company to post documents that the various members would like to access; there's no check-in/check-out system. The wiki offers full revision control, so that users can always view previous postings.

One other component that Low is especially proud of is the Ask the Expert module. The administrator can designate certain people as experts, and then those experts can answer questions from the whole community.

"Our key value proposition is that Orbius is designed for natural organizations for which there is a need to control the privileges of the different groups of the organization," says Low, "where the members also come together for the purpose of idea generation and not just for fun."

Orbius pricing starts at $10,000 per year for 1,000 users. Additional users cost $.80 per user per month, although that rate decreases with more users. There is also a free ad-supported version, which lacks some of the premium modules such as the idea factory, wiki, and survey tools.

The Web page for this alumni society was made with Orbius.

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