The Emergence of Social Media Archiving

The idea for a technology company that would support financial services’ adoption of social media was born at an Ohio breakfast meeting in early 2009. Three friends and business colleagues were present: Blane Warrene , the director of technology solutions for CBIZ, Carl Cline, compliance counsel for JP Morgan Chase and Tyson Lowery, president, Global Edge Technology (a product of GE’s leadership and Six Sigma program).

Lowery had founded Global Edge Technology specializing in broker-dealer integrations and was back in Ohio for a visit from California. As the friends caught up on work-related business, the conversation that would lead to the development of Arkovi, the first company to deliver a solution for archiving social media, began…

The Participants

Carl: “There are people asking us if they can do things beyond LinkedIn. I’m not even sure that LinkedIn is compliant.”

Blane: “Really? Explain more.”

Carl: “Compliance rules apply on three fronts: advertising, client correspondence, and general communications with the public. These impact all of the social networks. Can you get all of this data in a permanent archive?”

Blane and Tyson: “Wow! What an integration project that would be…”

As a result of that conversation, work began on a prototype. It was shared with a few people in January, 2009 Arkovi—the name embodying the concept of archiving a company’s data in a digital Noah’s ark—launched in beta in September, 2009 and in public beta in November, 2009. The public beta was supported by Investment News coverage “Finally, hope for advisers who want to tweet – but not delete”.

As the idea of three friends and business colleagues materialized, Blane left CBIZ to devote himself to Arkovi full-time prior to the private beta. Determined to make their new company a success, Carl and Tyson chose to join the firm as well.