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Just more evidence that more and more people are adopting social networks for the benefit of their community. Cisco is said to buy Tribe.net , a social networking site.

Quote from InfoWorld :The paper, citing anonymous sources, said that Cisco is purchasing the “underlying technology” assets of Tribe, an early mover in the social networking scene, but will not take over management of the Tribe.net social network.

Cisco will combine Tribe’s technology with software it acquired in February with Five Across to help its customers — such as TV networks and cable TV companies, create online environments for their employees and for their customers.

Cisco’s acquisition has not been announced but people are expecting the news in SVP Charlie Giancarlo’s speech at the VoiceCon conference, next week.

Clearly Cisco purchasing a social network doesn’t come as a surprise, I have been saying it over and over again, almost ever company that wants to leverage people power and need to build/(benefit from)  a community, will invest in a social networking solution. Almost every product has a forum or a billboard site of its own for users to come back and write about suggestions, improvements, problems, faq’s etc. Adding a social networking flavor to it will just be taking it a level further. Imagine your support site for your operating system being plugged into a socionet. You can interact with support staff after looking at his/her profile, make sure you don’t assume wrong things while talking to the person, get a good grip on their credentials and what more, if he/she is not available talk to one of their friends. Cool eh ? The impact of introducing social networking in enterprises is really big. What it has to offer in terms of collaboration and togetherness along with a feeling of belonging to a community is plus which people fail to see. Clearly more work is needed to leverage this concept and realize its pros and cons.

I shall be back with an article on how social networks can be used to improve enterprises  and also discuss on its pros and cons, If you have points of your own regarding this, please be kind enough to share them with me.