Wednesday, April 19, 2006

MySpace for the Office

Business Week: "Make no mistake: Young people love to socialize on the Web. Tens of millions of teens and young adults use sites like News Corp.'s (NWS ) MySpace or Facebook to trade messages on home pages loaded with blogs, photos, and music.

Now a startup called Visible Path is hoping to harness the popularity of Web-networking to create a tool for businesses. The closely held company in Foster City, Calif., has just raised $17 million in a second round of venture-capital funding, BusinessWeek Online has learned. The fund includes $10 million from Menlo Ventures, $5 million from Kleiner Perkins, and $2 million from Integral Capital Partners, according to Visible Path CEO Antony Brydon. The deal will be formally announced in the coming days.

Visible Path isn't the first social networking site to target Corporate America. LinkedIn also courts the business and professional market (see BW Online, 04/10/06, 'How LinkedIn Broke Through'). The hope is that social networking will follow the trend of other communications, such as e-mail and instant messaging, which got a foothold among tech-savvy youngsters before gaining traction in business. "

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