The pitfalls and privacy issues of the company social networks.

When I do some research on the cons side, I find two interesting articles, and these focus on the risks of company social networks. We know every company wants to gain more profits and reduce their costs by company social networking. And in the future, social networks will probably be recognized as the main drivers of organizational success. However, these two articles help me reconsider one thing: Does this increase profits or costs when the company focuses on developing company social networking?

One is ‘’ The pitfalls of social networking’’ (By Bart Perkins, February 11, 2008, Computerworld)

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do
command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Man
agement&articleId=311395&taxonomyId=14&pageNumber=1

It points out some challenges such as decreased employee productivity, and potential legal liability for companies, when most companies think they can get a lot of benefits from social networking. Please don’t forget the pitfalls of social networking that has the chance to cause companies not only gain few profits, but also increase their costs. And this article also show me some directions to know which will happen if the company do the social networking in the wrong way. According these hints, we can dig them deeper to know how to avoid these pitfalls.

The other is ‘’ Planning a company social network? Don’t forget privacy in a company social network’’ (By Jay Cline, April 10, 2008, Computerworld)

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do
command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Priv
acy&articleId=9076678&taxonomyId=84&pageNumber=1

It also shows the issue that companies may face, when many of them hurry to develop their company social networks. Which one can be disclosed, and which one cannot? And how many privacy problems may happen when the company deploys social networking? And which kinds of ways can control these problems? Because we already know a lot of advantage about social networking, we must to know which disadvantage we may face, and then we can evaluate both sides. Then do the suitable decision for companies.