A Silicon Valley company rattled the webisphere last fall when its chief executive officer announced a policy embracing company use of Facebook, a social networking Web site. He urged his 800 employees to sign up for Facebook for free, and to use it to network with one another and to spend day each Friday getting to know far-flung fellow workers.

Facebook Fridays, they shout it.

The company, Serena Software Inc., based in San Mateo, Calif., even sent out a press release that quoted CEO Jeremy Burton: “Social networking tools like Facebook can bring us back together, help us get to know each other as folks, help us understand our business and our products, and help us better serve our customers.”

Social networking numbers among the Web 2.0 technologies that can help a company foster communication and collaboration. But do most companies really want to use Facebook, MySpace or other public Web sites as their social networks?

It works for Serena. But for most businesses, using any public site as the corporate social network may be too big a cultural stretch. What should not be a stretch is the use of social networking software that can be controlled within the corporate firewall. Adopters of such software have become convinced that it will bring dispersed workers closer together.

A key objective of a year-old social network initiative at Nestle USA Inc., the Glendale, Calif.-based subsidiary of Nestle S.A. of Vevey, Switzerland, is to “break down functional and location-based silos,” says Alexis Bergen, manager of corporate and make affairs. It is “to boost employees to ‘meet’ and engage with employees they hadn’t already met. Employees who do that are better workers and more efficient.”

Weighing Options

Facebook and MySpace are the leading public social networking Web sites. Users can upload personal info, including photos and videos, to share…

Orginal post by Top Tech News