Social empowers your business!

A social networking service is a platform to build networks among people who share interests, activities, or real-life connections. It consists of a representation of each user (a profile), his social links, and a variety of additional applications. At the forefront of emerging trends in social networking sites is the concept of “real-time web” and “location-based.” Companies are developing interactive communities that connect individuals based on shared business needs or experiences. Many provide specialized networking tools and applications that can be accessed via their websites, such as LinkedIn. Others companies, such as Monster.com, have been steadily developing a more “socialized” feel to their career center sites to harness some of the power of social networking sites and Foursquare gained popularity as it allows users to “check-in” to places that they are frequenting at that moment. Last year, there has been a rapid spread-off of cloud solution for project management, source code control and continuous integration, such as Microsoft Team Foundation Server Online, or some more compressive suites such as JustinMind communities, which are interconnected communities of their products, mixing on-line clouding social with on-promise working tools. As an example of how widespread the impact of these programs are, consider the major role that social media and social networking websites played in the 2008 election of president Barack Obama, who won the popular vote by the largest margin in recent history. We can list some of the main advantages:

• Commonality of Interest: user can pick and choose individuals whose likes, needs, or business are similar and build a more productive network around those commonalities.
• Real-Time Information Sharing: Many social sites incorporate an instant messaging feature for team meetings, for conference organizers or to update attendees and for business people to use as a means of interacting with clients or prospects.
• Free Advertising: Users can promote products, services or ideas for free.
• Cooperation: A gift economy and reciprocal altruism are at the heart of online communities. Information is particularly suited to a gift economy, as information is a non-rival good and can be offered at practically no cost.