Mediaboss Marketing

At first, social networking was a novelty, a fun thing you did for your social life.

Then businesses came on board, seeing how everything from Facebook-like interactivity to Twitter-y updates could help get their messages out.

Now, social networking has become so much the norm that businesses are trying to figure out how best to use it within their own companies and networks to drive results.

Indeed, social networking for businesses is seen as a next big thing.

"It's going to be something like email that's going to be ubiquitous and that people are going to expect to use in combination with a lot of different applications," said Rob Helm, an analyst with the independent research firm Directions on Microsoft.

Look no further than Yammer, a San Francisco-based company that offers social-networking and content-collaboration tools for businesses. It's one of several such companies, including Jive and Socialtext.

Microsoft is reportedly in talks to acquire Yammer for $1.2 billion, according to several media accounts.

Microsoft declined to comment and Yammer did as well.

Though seen as a next big thing, Microsoft "has missed the market" in terms of providing easy-to-use Facebook-like features as part of its business-collaboration offerings, said Kevin Conroy, president of Blue Rooster, a Seattle-based tech and consulting firm that specializes in building collaborative social-business websites for corporations.

Collaborative tool

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Yammer acquisition would boost Microsoft's social-business tools