
And you thought social networking was all about text-messaging among bored teenagers. IBM has another take on it. Today the company plans to announce a set of social software tools that will bring the kind of blogging, idea sharing, and war-story swapping typically associated with MySpace and Facebook, the social networking sites popular among teenagers and college students, to the corporate world. <A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/technology/22ibm.html?ex=1327122000&en=1e5bd7434ae67fb4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">Called Lotus Connections,</A> the new software, expected later this year, will let employees set up virtual worlds in which they can meet like-minded colleagues within the company and exchange ideas with them, all in the name of improving productivity. And that's just for starters.