The use of social-networking platforms in 2009 will continue to increase, and their growth will flourish in specific niches, including events, training, market research, and business communications, according to Pringo, a provider of non-hosted online community platforms. Pringo offers the following forecast for how social networking will shape up in 2009: 1. The way employees operate and collaborate is going to change. 2. Show organizers will adopt and implement social-networking platforms to enable attendees to meet and interact virtually 3. Market research firms will likely turn to social-networking platforms to organize and conduct their studies. 4. Corporate HR departments will find value in using social-networking platforms to hold training sessions and interact with their constituents. 5. Organizations will incorporate social-networking capabilities into their intranets 6. Social-networking functions will be built into business software, such as enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management applications.

(www.pringo.com)

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