Enterprises are being offered the chance to use Facebook. Open source enterprise content management company Alfresco has integrated its application with the social networking site to enable its users to communicate more effectively with customers and partners. Alfresco claimed that it was the first Facebook application specifically developed for business users.
Chief Technical Officer John Newton said that the company had originally planned to develop an application for MySpace but thought that Facebook was much more appealing to business users.
He admitted that there were some companies who had reacted to the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook by trying to prohibit their use by employees but said that many companies, particularly those with younger staff members, thought it was a useful marketing tool. Newton said many organizations wanted to be as open as possible: "This is about the wisdom of crowds," he said. "You see many companies, like IBM, adopting the 'open' mindset and abandoning the idea that communication should be closed."