In January, the school began using Blackboard Scholar, a social bookmarking site from Blackboard Inc. that allows students to tag and share bookmarks. In addition, instructors can tag pages that supplement specific courses, Kunnen added.

In November, the college began offering instant messaging software called Pronto from New York-based Horizon Wimba to all students. The IM tool is integrated with the college's course management system. When students log onto Pronto, they are shown only contacts who are in their classes, Kunnen said.

F5 Networks Inc., a Seattle-based maker of tools that can ensure the security and availability of network applications, has been building out a social network over the past 15 months, said Jeff Browning, F5's director of product management. The site has more than 13,000 technical users from various sections of IT departments, including applications, systems and networking, he said.

The site, called DevCentral, offers blogs, forums, wikis and video syndicated into RSS feeds that generate valuable feedback for F5 about its products, Browning said. "[DevCentral] helps reduce our risk in our development efforts," he said. "It is a real-time feedback mechanism to make sure we are solving the problems the customers are interested in solving."

But social networks can create new challenges for organizations, as the campaign for former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) discovered last week when one of its campaign bloggers came under fire for blog postings that were labeled as anti-Catholic. The blogger on Monday.