IBM has been using an social network called Beehive to help employees share pictures, videos, links and meet in ad hoc groups. Users can post, share and reuse top 5 lists, which are called Hive5s. The ability to reuse or reshare lists has been a key feature. Over 35,000 IBM employees were registered on Beehive as of May 2008, with 15000 Hive5 lists and over 280,000 shared connections.
The Associated Press called this a virtual watercooler in a recent article. Intrenet Blog has its own article called Behind Beehive’s social success @ IBM that has a screenshot of the application - the default background color is yellow, not blue.
LinkedIn is developing intranet applications for enterprise clients, so employees can share contact lists and create private connections within a secure enivronment
Facebook is also moving in this direction, if the reports from this week’s F8 developers conference in San Francisco are credible.
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