The New Employee Connection: Social Networking

As Facebook-like apps infiltrate the enterprise, they're integrating the workforce in unforeseen ways.

Microsoft calls it TownSquare. Deloitte hosts D Street. IBM has its Beehive, and Best Buy its BlueShirt Nation.

No, it's not a real estate explosion. In industries from retail to high tech, banking and manufacturing, companies are increasingly building networks behind the firewall where employees can create profiles and connect with one another in ways first demonstrated by LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace.

"The whole Web 2.0 explosion has moved from the consumer and college student world to professionals in the business world," says Amy Shuen, author of Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide. (O'Reilly Media, 2008). "Employees are seeing this as a way of enlarging their sphere and interacting with colleagues." ...Go to source