PlanetPTC: It’s All About CommunityPlanetPTC: It’s All About Community

PTC is giving users a taste of how social networking technologies can transform the traditional user community or message board. The company just launched PlanetPTC Community, an online environment where PTC customers and other product development professionals can come together to showcase their work, network with peers and share success stories and experiences.

PTC conducted extensive research, including an engagement with Forrester Research  to determine its customers’ readiness for a PTC-hosted community. PTC execs say they shaped the kind of content and interactions based on what PTC customers said they wanted. In fact, content for PlanetPTC Community has been contributed by Diamond members (essentially the founding participants), who were most eager to share their stories. The platform features the full gamut of Web 2.0 technologies and concepts, including discussion forums, blogging, microblogging, wikis, news feeds, file sharing, groups, content rating, commenting, tagging and friending. PTC has appointed a community manager to assist members with questions.

In addition to the community aspect, PlanetPTC will feature PlanetPTC Live!, a face-to-face event series that will deliver education, product development news and access to PTC experts and partners; and PlanetPTC Virtual, a user-friendly, online gathering that delivers real-time and on-demand education.