Social networking (SN) is not just for tweens any more, as evidenced by the $17 million in second round funding for enterprise SN firm Visible Path.
BW online reports it is not the first SN play, in "How LinkedIn broke through".
Visible Path is aiming squarely at the enterprise with its SN/collab service, rather than the individual, however.
BW writes: "Visible Path looks different from other social-networking sites. Users don't create home pages or profiles on Visible Path. The site instead keeps tabs on whom its users communicate with by e-mail or through other means. And it ranks the strengths of those relationships based on how often people communicate. Then it helps users find common sources and contacts so they can approach one another to do business."
Seems to me, and VC folk obviously, there's a great opportunity to seize on collaboration in business yet and get people off e-mail for group communications and project work. But the more these enterprise SN plays can integrate with e-mail and exisiting apps, or shift work to them to capture ideas etc, the better for their acceptance as additional value as a tool is weighed down by another app on the menu.
Enterpise wikis such as Social Text are on a roll, and others are sure to follow as the technology use gels. Social Text's newish Miki, or mobile wiki, is an example of how to weave the tech into an increasingly mobile workforce - and make you wonder how email has lasted as the dominant collaboration tool for so long.
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