vnunet.com analysis: Blogging and the art of business communication

Some organisations, however, have gone even further and put social networking tools like blogs and collaborative websites, or wikis, to use internally, to achieve benefits like increased productivity and collaboration.

"From an internal aspect, these tools are like lightweight content management systems with social networking capabilities," said Charman. "The technology is not new; it's the cultural change it brings that's challenging."

Many companies already use blogs or wikis instead of intranets to share competitive information or to keep in constant communication.

And those that make use of the tagging or bookmarking capabilities of Web 2.0 technology can provide a repository of information for more effective knowledge management than email.

"Social bookmarking and tagging allows companies to make the unstructured data already gathered retrievable and usable," said Charman.

UK web-based automated despatch firm eCourier recently bought enterprise weblog software TeamPage from specialist vendor Traction to accelerate the bespoke development of the company's business systems.

Jay Bregman, chief technology officer at eCourier, told vnunet.com: "It was quite an exercise to keep multiple teams in Italy, Germany and the UK up to date in developing our business systems, and we couldn't afford to have everybody meet at a hotel every three months."

Bregman explained that the software was more economical and flexible to customise than traditional project management software tools, and easier to implement than free blogging software packages.

"And the advantage over email is that you can set certain areas where people can and cannot write to," he said.

"We have a persistent view of projects, so we can review things we did right or wrong, and give new people a chance to go back and update their knowledge."

It is Bregman and others who are showing the way for next-generation social networking technology which can add value to the way we work and play online.

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