NocPlace: The Community for Preventing IT Issues?

Earlier today I blogged about BackupHeroes.com, an online community for backup and disaster recovery professionals. Now I’ve spotted NocPlace, an IT community that strives to prevent IT issues. Predictably, NOC is short for Network Operations Center. Could NocPlace be another destination for VARs and MSPs seeking to share best practices?

NocPlace works a bit like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace — allowing you to “friend” peers who are dealing with similar IT issues. “When you go to a forum and ask a question, it’s usually because something has already blown up.” said NocPlace Co-Founder Jack Holt, formerly CEO of S3 Matching Technologies LLC.

NocPlace launched as a service this month. It currently has several hundred users. The revenue model, according to Holt, is similar to that of Linkedin: It’s free for users to sign-up and begin using the service; you then pay if you want to access additional features.

I gave NocPlace a try a few days ago. The first thing I noticed was the amount of detail NocPlace wants to know about you and your company before you start using the service. Your name, user name, job title and department are just the beginning. NocPlace lets you set your privacy level so that you can choose whether everyone can view your information and tips or just members of your company. Then NocPlace really gets to know you, asking which region of the wold you live in, company size, how fast your infrastructure is growing, how many devices/data centers you have, etc.

The services gives tips on how to filter which topics and devices you follow, and then lists topics and tips through a live feed that ticks down chronologically. “Everything revolves around tips,” said Holt. “There’s someone out there that has your same hear and they know about a tip that they can use to share and help everyone else that’s using it.”

We’ll be watching to see if NocPlace gains critical mass with VARs and MSPs.

Sign up for MSPmentor’s Weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. Follow us via RSS, Facebook and Twitter. Check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com. Read our editorial disclosure here.