Paul Gillin, auteur de 'The New Influencers', revient sur les expériences de la holding Sabre, d'IBM, Pfizer, des hôtels Hilton ou encore de l'assureur Wachovia pour justifier de l'intérêt pour l'entreprise de disposer d'un réseau social.

"This is an online hallway" says Al Comeaux, senior vice president of corporate communications at the travel firm. "It's an opportunity to build a culture."

It's also a chance to capture and preserve corporate knowledge. That's becoming an increasingly pressing concern in U.S. companies. The ratio of U.S. citizens under the age of 65 to those over 65 is expected to decline from more than 7:1 today to about 4:1 by 2030. Businesses are scrambling to preserve expertise that can be passed along to the next generation of employees.

That has IT and human resource managers looking to the Internet for solutions. And like so many recent Internet trends, the phenomenon called Web 2.0 or social media is finding acceptance in consumer markets first before working its way inside the corporate firewall.

Nearly everyone is familiar with the stunning success of social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, which together count nearly 100 million members. Now big businesses are adapting public services to their own needs. Forrester Research estimates that the market for internal social media applications will reach $4.6 billion by 2013.

. Web-profils.com, la place de marché du conseil et de l'ingénierie