Deloitte Releases Optimistic
Social Networks in Enterprise Report

Deloitte recently released their report, Social Networks in the Enterprise: Facebook for the Fortune 500, which predicts that "2009 is likely to be the breakout year for social networks in the enterprise."  They also predict that total spending on social networking solutions (both internal and external) for enterprise will likely approach half a billion dollars. 

Deloitte believes that social networks for the enterprise are "likely to be considered an inexpensive solution" despite "financially constrained IT spending" because of the current state of the economy.  They also predict that large IT companies will spend a significant amount of R&D dollars in 2009 on social networking applications that "focus exclusively on enterprise."  These solutions are attractive to such companies because of their "hierarchy-flattening, information-sharing, [and] team-building" effects.   

As the graphic at right shows, the Deloitte report explains the multi-faceted and far-reaching nature of Enterprise Social Networking (ESN), which can include such diverse solutions and applications as social discovery, social search, microblogging, cloud computing, Web 2.0 applications, wikis, mash-ups, online meetings, and syndicated feeds.

The bottom line, according to Deloitte's report, suggests a bright future for comprehensive Enterprise Social Networking solutions in 2009.  They believe that "social networks look to be a powerful tool and a way of tapping into the 'wisdom of crowds.'"  Though Deloitte cautions the need for IT departments to develop solutions that will allow these tools to enhance productivity, they see most ESN solutions as "inexpensive, easy to roll out and requir[ing] little employee training."  No doubt, then, despite (or even because of) the current economic difficulties, enterprise companies should see innovations like NewsGator's Social Sites (our social networking offering that focuses exclusively on the enterprise) as ever critical to their employees' productivity and the overall functioning of their companies.