Cisco Dabbles in Social Networking

Cisco said Friday that it had acquired Five Across, a small San-Francisco company that specializes in creating applications that allow companies to easily add social-networking functionality to their Web sites.

The software enables IT administrators to easily add sections to sites that allow for the sharing of content, as well as enable users to post profiles and blogs. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and Cisco says it expects the acquisition to close by the end of April.

While the company has traditionally dealt with enterprise applications, Cisco has recently begun to put its name out in front of the consumer. Its latest marketing campaign, "The Human Network," attempts to heighten Cisco's profile as the backbone of the Internet.

Social networking is actually a good fit for the company's overall strategy. Running sites with such capabilities requires a lot of bandwidth, and in turn the purchase of new equipment, which is Cisco's premier business.

Five Across would be integrated into the recently created Media Solutions unit, which is tasked with marketing Cisco products to owners and creators of digital media content. Five Across' technologies would fit in nicely, as these days the best way to get the word out about content is through social networking.

"Cisco believes the network is the platform for organizations to connect with their constituents and for individuals to connect with each other," unit head Dan Scheinman said. "With the acquisition of Five Across, Cisco is taking an important step towards helping its customers evolve their website experience into something more relevant and valuable to the end-user."

Regardless of Cisco's vision to provide an end-to-end solution, it would enter an increasingly crowded marketplace. The big three companies -- Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft -- all either offer technology to integrate social networking into Web sites, or host sites of their own.

However, those solutions have been aimed at the consumer, as no company has offered an option for larger businesses to purchase social networking technologies for their own sites.