Social Networking

Whether building a global, online community or simply streamlining a basic business process, enterprise customers are seeking to understand and make use of the many tools, platforms and services that make up the runaway locomotive known as social networking. The rationale is simple. By allowing users to cultivate their own network of peers, manage their own online presence and exchange information within self-organized groups, enterprises hope to foster agility, improve productivity, reduce capital expenditures and cut travel costs.







Eager to capitalize on the industry momentum surrounding this combination of corporate collaboration and consumer socialization, vendors within the collaboration and conferencing space have begun to rethink the way enterprise users interact. For example, collaboration and productivity suite providers have made inroads into social networking practices, opening their doors to the user information housed within public social network services (SNC) such as LinkedIn and Facebook. And Web conferencing vendors have coupled their real-time collaboration tools with long-running community features such as user profiles and community polling/discussions.