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INDUSTRY NEWS


7 May 2008

Enterprise social networking growing 'faster than expected'


Social networking for enterprises established itself in 2007, enjoying much faster growth than many analysts had expected due to the emergence of a number of robust solutions, it has been revealed.

According to analyst IDC, last year also saw significant consolidation in the market for enterprise social networking, with several established information and content management firms building social features into their newest solutions.

"Enterprise social networking applications established a strong foothold in 2007, emerging as a more comprehensive solution than single utility applications like blogs and wikis," explained Rachel Happe, researcher at IDC.

She explained that a number of trends were conspiring to drive growth in the market, including the social filtering of content, adoption of consumer social networking services and the perception among enterprises that communities are a way to increase differentiation and retain customers.

According to a Gartner poll, enterprises are struggling to impose governance on the use of web 2.0 tools such as social networking partially because employees are willing to use services that expose their organisations to security threats.

A recent poll revealed that 50 per cent of employees customise their work environment, most of whom are doing so using unsanctioned applications and widgets.

© 2006 Adfero Ltd.

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