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MySpace: Coming to the enterprise?

Is the enterprise looking for friends?
Written by Donna Bogatin, Contributor

Is MySpace coming to the enterprise? According to Business Week it is.

On what does Steve Hamm base his assertion? IBM's announcement today of “Lotus Connections.”

IBM describes its offering as “the industry's first platform for business-grade social computing”:

 

Lotus Connections facilitates the gathering and exchange of information through professional networks, provides a dashboard-like view of current projects and connects users to like-minded communities. In addition, Lotus Connections removes the need for multiple social software applications, providing businesses with a single destination for building professional communities.

Are MySpace friends “social computing” or social networking?

Hamm on Lotus Connections:

It wraps five social networking technologies up into one integrated package—similar to what Microsoft's Office does for traditional desktop productivity software such as Word and Excel. 

Excel spreadsheets and Word documents are social networking tools a la MySpace?

Google would undoubtedly beg to differ.

Matt Glotzbach, head of enterprise products at Google, on Google Apps for Your Domain vs. Microsoft Office:

The right way to view Writely and Google Spreadsheets, especially in the context of a larger business, isn’t necessarily as a replacement for Word or Excel. They’re the collaboration component of that.

Moreover, has Hamm visited a MySpace friend’s profile lately? Below is a representative sample.

 

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The MySpace signature unabashed self-promotion and soft porn have nothing in common with enterprise collaboration.

 

ALSO: MySpace: Can software really make it safer?

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