In its version 2.7, announced Thursday, Social Sites has a new tab in its interface labeled "Ideas," which provides functionality for what NewsGator calls "innovation management."

There are stand-alone applications for automating these idea-generation tasks, but NewsGator believes the functionality is important enough that it should be a standard component of Social Sites.

"Companies have to innovate their way to a better position in this economy," said Brian Kellner, NewsGator's vice president of products.