New tool claims to allay Facebook concerns

Collaboration software vendor WorkLight has today launched a new product aimed at allowing the safe and effective use of Facebook at work.

It is launching its new 'WorkBook' application add-on here, which was previously only available in the US. The UK is the next to get the tool because it has the highest number of active Facebook users outside the US, totalling about 13 per cent of the population according to the social networking service's own records.

But research released at the beginning of this month by international recruitment consultancy Badenoch & Clark reinforced the perception that access to such websites in the workplace is best prohibited. It found that 12 per cent of UK workers have had access blocked by their employers and 72 per cent claim not to access them during work hours even if they can.

Nevertheless, WorkLight pointed to a recent Forrester Research survey of employees in Europe and the US that found implementing a collaboration strategy was considered a priority or critical priority by 59 per cent of respondents.

Shahar Kaminitz, chief executive and founder of WorkLight, said: "Companies are particularly interested in leveraging employee expertise and mindshare to increase productivity with consumer tools, without hampering employee-driven initiatives. Facebook is a perfect example of how we are seeing this trend is impacting the corporate world."

The WorkBook application is designed to combine all the capabilities of Facebook with the controls of a corporate environment. This includes integration with existing enterprise security services, policies and provisioning, like single sign-on, as well as secure information sources to eliminate the security concerns associated with social networking use in the workplace.

The tool lets users search for colleagues by name, location, department, project and area of expertise and provides general and personalised company news delivered directly from a Facebook news feed. It also allows for the creation of groups around shared interest areas and work-related projects.

Neil Machehiter, research director of analyst firm Macehiter Ward-Dutton, doubted that there would be significant interest in this tool in the short-term. "If organisations can't see the benefits of Facebook in the enterprise at present, I fail to see how they are going to be able to justify the initial investment for a solution such as this," he told IT PRO.

But he added: "I think it is most likely to be attractive to organisations with an emphasis on distributed, knowledge-intensive workers, like consultancies, design agencies and the more creative industries, where there is a significant amount of collaboration."

He warned that adopters of such technology would also "have to think about content lifecycle management solutions to ensure that content is effectively archived and supports regulatory compliance requirements".

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