IBM LotusLive Engage

Conventionally stereotyped as big, traditional and cumbersome – the epitome of the large, inflexible corporation – Big Blue has just announced that is ready for a major foray into the social networking field.

Business social networking, to be precise. LotusLive Engage is the blue chip company’s latest offering. The service allows users to engage in meaningful business dialogue in a secure Web-based environment without having to deal with installation, maintenance, firewalls and security issues surrounding customized or desktop-based business communications tools.

Offering complete integration with Lotus Notes, LotusLive Engage includes Web conferencing, live messaging and collaborative work tools. The service also allows participants to create and share charts. Small businesses will be able to connect to clients, suppliers and other stakeholders for low cost communication. Interestingly, you can manipulate tag clouds and word trees to represent chart data. The system represents a convergence of popular social networking technologies with business applications.

LotusLive Engage screenshot

You can register and try it for free. If you already know somebody who’s using it, try finding them here and asking them to invite you to their network.