NEW YORK – September 17, 2008 – WorkLight, the Enterprise Web 2.0 specialist, says a just-released report in the US, which claims to show a near-doubling in the numbers of firms happy for their staff to use social media applications during business hours is a sure sign that companies are embracing Web 2.0 services at long last.

"Awareness Inc's survey discovered that 69 per cent of US businesses are allowing their employees to access social networking sites and allied services during business hours - a significant rise on the 37 per cent reported a year ago," said David Lavenda, WorkLight's vice president of marketing and strategy.
 
"Even more interesting is the fact that 75 per cent of employees in the US are using social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace for business purposes, a rise of 15 per cent in the last 12 months," he added.
 
According to Lavenda, it is also intriguing to hear the reasons why some firms block staff from accessing social media services.
 
These reasons, he says, include a loss of productivity (67.7 per cent) and a lack of security (45.7 per cent), as well as the risk of inappropriate content being posted online.
 
"It's good, however, to see that 64 per cent of US firms are now using social media sites and services to build their brand, and 58 per cent of them are using these Web 2.0 services to boost consumer engagement. This confirms our long-held contention that Web 2.0 services really do increase firm's B2B and B2C ability to do further their businesses," he said.
 
For more on US firm's usage of social media sites: http://tinyurl.com/5f5vg9
 
For more on WorkLight: http://www.myworklight.com