Microsoft to launch Facebook-esque venture

17/06/2008

Technology giant Microsoft is set to launch a new social networking venture designed for company intranets.

The venture, which will be called TownSquare, is in its prototype stage and is currently being tested by around 700 Microsoft employees.

The idea is that employees will be able to customise profiles and feeds and share information with colleagues across a permission based platform.

Office Labs general manager Chris Pratley is a key stakeholder in the project and hopes to get everything right prior to its release.

"We're trying to get version three goodness into a first release," he said.

"We have instrumentation, so we know which things people use.

"We share that with the client teams we work with. They take the knowledge about usage, so they don't make so many mistakes in product design."

Microsoft is clearly buying into the idea of social networking.

Its latest venture follows the purchace of a $240 million stake in Facebook in October 2007.