Microsoft tests Facebook knock-off: social networking for the enterprise

Microsoft has been using its employees as guinea pigs for a social networking application that looks and functions strikingly like Facebook, Computerworld reports. But there is a key difference. The social network, dubbed "TownSquare" is reportedly for internal social networks intended to be used by employees for other employees -- somewhat like an intranet on steroids.

TownSquare, for instance, can query existing SharePoint databases for information about the latest employee promotions, company anniversaries and the like and use that data to create employee profiles. On the icky side, it means that employees are seeing first-hand how Big Brother-like their employer can be (and this goes for any large corporate employer, not just Microsoft).  The story said that some employees felt creeped out by this -- which presumably means that the employee profile and feed can be automatically created from publicly-available records (rather than being built explicitly by the employee). Computerworld reports that some 8,000 employees have visited the site more than once with about 700 using it daily. So some of those 8,000 visits might have been employees checking a profile to see what was being said about themselves.

In the long run, though, the site isn't about Microsoft watching its employees. It is intended to be an add-on to SharePoint and Office that crafts a social network that large enterprises would want to implement for business use. While auto-populating an employee profile with anniversary info might be a who-cares, other business uses seem plausible. An internal social network that allows employees to ask questions and get answers (a la LinkedIn), or one that allows large business units to track the goings on of a large long-term project (complete with photos) could be useful, particularly if it integrates tightly with SharePoint and Office.

Microsoft is slated to disclose more details of TownSquare on Thursday at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.

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