Overview of the past week’s Force.com and Salesforce related articles. Enjoy!

Winter ’12 Social Approving of Records Using ‘Chatter Approvals’
@abhinavguptas
Enabling Chatter Approvals and fun ways to use them.

Formatting Salesforce OutputText
@wesnolte
Advanced capabilities of params and outputTexts.

Salesforce APIs- What They Are and When to Use Them
@forcedotcom
Dianne Siebold sits down with Pat Patterson to talk about the different APIs that are available, such as SOAP, Metadata, Apex, REST, and so on, and how to use them.

Winter ’12 is Here and It’s Social
@Salesforce
Winter ’12 is social with the release of the Sales Cloud, Chatter, Data.com, Database.com, and more.

Getting Salesforce Field Metadata the Easy Way
@jeffdonthemic
Apex Describe isn’t the easiest thing to work with, so Jeff Douglas offers some code to return the metadata so you can “perform ‘stuff’ accordingly.’”

If You Build it (and a Whole Lot of People Work Really, Really Hard for Six Years) They Will Come
@Salesforce
AppExchange was launched six years ago, and recently hit its one millionth install milestone.

Configuring Chatter Activities. Custom Fields and Hashtags!
@kevinswiggum
A video outlining how to use custom settings in Chatter Activities to customize your Chatter features.

Ruby Sessions at Dreamforce
@Fractastical
Video summaries of all of the Ruby and Heroku sessions at Dreamforce.

Video- Debugging Apex Tools and Techniques (DF11)
@jeffdonthemic
A video from DF11 showing you how to use the new System Log (Apex CSI).

Recent Updates to the Winter ’12 Release Notes
@forcedotcom
Chapman-Thurber explains some of the changes in Winter ’12.

Nick Mehta shares his thoughts on Benioff’s speaking abilities. He brings to light how Benioff is inclusive and infectious, insisting on the “you” instead of “our company,” creating a sense of community rather than a corporation. He creates an environment where customers and users want to learn and talk to each other and are excited to hear more. Benioff is constantly evolving salesforce.com to adhere to new trends and needs and isn’t afraid to adapt or imitate new technology such as Facebook. While presenting, Benioff is confrontational, taking small jabs at people such as Bill Gates or companies like Oracle, which proves that Salesforce is more of a revolution against “old guard CEOs who don’t get the social enterprise.” All in all, Mehta has been impressed with Benioff and salesforce.com’s success and true passion for the community.

• Marc Benioff’s Five Leadership Secrets

Gertner’s research suggests that SaaS is now worth $12.1 billion worldwide. “Increasing familiarity with the model, continued oversight on IT budgets, and the growth of PaaS developer communities and interest in cloud computing are now driving adoption forward,” says Sheron Mertz, a Gartner researcher. In North America alone, SaaS is worth $7.7 billion, with a predicted growth of $12.9 billion by 2015.

• SaaS Industry Now Worth US $12.1 Billion

Another Benioff article; they are just flocking in because of the post-Dreamforce high. In this one, Wainewright discusses Benioff’s argument that if enterprises don’t embrace social media, they are going to fall behind. During London’s Cloudforce this past week, Benioff was asked to comment on what is going to happen to companies that do not embrace the social enterprise. Benioff’s response was straight to the point, “They’re not going to be around in five or six years. The world is just gonna snap them in the neck.” Whether this response was a little harsh is debatable, but does it hold truth? I particularly like Wainewright’s point at the end, “if you don’t have a strategy to the cloud, you’ll still lose the race in the end.” This holds a lot of truth for the social enterprise, too. If you don’t set a strategy, goals, or take the time to learn how to properly use it, you might as well just forget about becoming a part of it.

• Enterprises Must Change or Die, Says Benioff

Some new additions to Chatter in Winter ’12 to look forward to. ChatterActivity tells you the number of posts/comments/likes on posts made by the user; ChatterConversation, ChatterConversationMember, and ChatterMessage all represent private messages within members. Lots to look forward to for Winter ’12.

• New Chatter Objects in Winter ’12

Klimoff offers some advice before moving to the cloud. Before making the transition, make sure you consider why and how you are going to benefit from the cloud. For example, break down your IT processes and applications and think about what benefits you want to receive from them by transitioning to the cloud. Analyze data access patterns, security domains, availability and reliability; make sure you look into these before uncovering any issues in the future. Finally, calculate the total cost of moving to the cloud, whether it saves you money or costs more. I would add, too, to consider looking up case studies of other cloud stories, just to understand how it could benefit your company; this way, you are going into the cloud knowing what you can get out of it.

• Tips to Help Businesses Make the Most Out of the Cloud

Recap of all the Force.com and Salesforce articles from the previous week.

Marc Benioff and Eric Schmidt Keynote at Dreamforce 2011
@JamieGrenney
Quick run through of Benioff and Schmidt’s keynote at Dreamforce last week.

More Apex Testing with SmartFactory!
@abhinavguptas
SmartFactory makes it easier to create Mock objects for Apex test cases.

Database.com is GA!
@forcedotcom
Originally announced at Dreamforce last week, Database.com is now generally available on Salesforce.

Hot Off the Presses- Winter ’12 Developer Doc
@forcedotcom
Get a sneak peak at what is available for developers coming this winter.

Seesmic CRM for Salesforce (Android Version) Reviewed!
@abhinavguptas
Abhinav’s review of Seesmic’s Android app, likes and dislikes, etc.

System.JSON in Winter ’12
@quintonwall
Salesforce.com Winter ’12 supports JSON natively on the platform.

Dreamforce ’11 Debrief
@sfdc_nerd
Dreamforce overview, summing the conference up with one word: engagement.

As Marc Benioff pointed out this week at Dreamforce, the social enterprise is here, right now. It can be used to find out who your customers are and what they like, or even to create an employee social network within your business. Find out what’s new with Chatter and the Sales Cloud through the link below.

• Welcome to the Social Enterprise

Missed Benioff’s kickoff keynote? This article runs through the gist of it. Benioff’s goal is to get companies involved in the Social Enterprise. To do this, companies must develop a social media profile to monitor their customer’s needs and wants, create an employee social network so employee’s can exchange information and collaborate internally, and lastly, companies need to develop a Customer Social Network and a Product Social Network, which would be specific to that company or product, such as Toyota Friend. If companies do not start taking advantage of what social media has to offer, they are going to fall behind.

• Salesforce’s Benioff: “We Were Born Cloud, Now We’ve Been Reborn Social”

When the internet came into our lives 15 years ago, people were saying it would change everything, and it has. Now, cloud computing is going to change everything in the next 10 years. We will reach a point where all applications are delivered over the cloud, and CD software installation will be obsolete. Consumer needs are changing, we are all adapting to rely on the internet and the cloud to store our information, to run our business, to keep in touch with our friends and family. These changes over the next decade will be subtle and hardly noticeable, but like the article states, “we will wake up one day, look around and realize that the old ways have faded away.”

• Cloud: The Last Great Shift in the Software Industry

Earlier this month, Salesforce.com quietly acquired Navajo Systems, an Israeli cloud security encryption vendor. This acquisition will ease future cloud security concerns, which is a popular discussion and fear when it comes to moving to the cloud. “Customers are increasingly wary of storing corporate data in the cloud and expect certain guarantees that the data will be safe and protected when it is accessed,” and encrypting data will be the standard for easing those fears.

• Salesforce.com Acquires SaaS Encryption Provider Navajo Systems

Different companies have different needs for cloud computing. However, these three are universally important aspects to any business. The cloud is cost efficient, provides on demand utility, and is the way of the future. The cloud is estimated to increase 200% by 2015, therefore “it is time to embrace the future.”

• The Three Greatest Reasons to Move to the Cloud

Quick recap of all the Salesforce and Dreamforce related posts from the previous week.

Salesforce Trigger When Rollups Summaries Not Possible
@jeffdonthemic
Illustrative reference on the Sales Order to see which country is primary on any of the multiple Sales Order Items.

More Dreamforce 2011 Developer Sessions You May Have Missed
@quintonwall
Make sure to check out these Developerforce sessions at Dreamforce this week.

Salesforce’s Radian6 Takes Social Media Monitoring Platform Moible With New iOS App
@TechCrunch
Radian6 launched their new iOS app last week.

Scobleizer, Queener, Ritter, Gerholdt. 4 Killer Apps. Live from Dreamforce, it’s AppQuest ’11!
@indysen
AppQuest is on Tuesday starting at 5pm; find out who will be the next cloud idol.

Partner Experience at Dreamforce ’11
@forcedotcom
Partners, make sure to check out the partner portal for Dreamforce advice.

Build a Bulk Emailer for Salesforce with App Engine
@jeffdonthemic
Suggestions on how to send bulk emails through salesforce.com

The Doc Team at Dreamforce
@forcedotcom
The Doc Team will be hanging around Dreamforce to answer your questions or listen to your suggestions about user assistance. Stop by and see them, even if it’s just to say hello.

Long Awaited: Our Next Round of Force.com MVPs!
@forcedotcom
Congrats to this year’s Salesforce MVPs!

Announcing Java Spring Development Kit for Force.com and Database.com
@jesperfj
Database.com SDK for Java and Spring is now available for salesforce.com.

Sorting Apex SelectOption Array/List
@abhinavguptas
A simple way to custom sort through SelectOptions.

A quick snapshot of all the Force.com, Salesforce, and Dreamforce related articles from the previous week.

AppExchange Dreamforce “Can’t-Miss” Sessions List
@Salesforce
Check out these six useful AppExchange sessions at Dreamforce.

Dreamforce: It’s All About the People
@imperialstout
Dreamforce is not just about the sessions, but the people too. Take advantage of those around you and strike up conversations with random folks, you’ll get a lot more out of Dreamforce if you do.

Cloud Talk: CA Technologies Develops in 1/2 the Time and with 1/3 Fewer Resources with Force.com
@Indrajit_Sen
A great case study on how Force.com changed their business for the better.

Quick Tip-Pretty Print JSON in the Browser
@metadaddy
A way to “pretty print” JSON without pulling in a bunch of code.

Dreamforce: Top 5 Tips for Developers
@ReidCarlberg
Some tips include prepare an elevator pitch, make plans to meet people, plan some downtime, and plan out your sessions.

Logging Into Salesforce Through the Web Interface
@wesnolte
Various ways to authenticate with the Force.com platform.