Social Networking 10/8

It's interesting to note that social networking began (for most of us) on just that, a social level.  As its efficacy has been reinforced by the successes of Myspace and Facebook, corporations began to embrace the utility of connecting people in new ways.  In regard to collaboration, the ease of virtually connecting with a co-worker, whether he shares an office or is working remotely, is unprecedented and I would argue universally valued.  However, a direct result of this ease is a decrease in peer to peer interaction. Although it's probably still too early to make a definitive judgement, many would argue that this lack of personal interaction is resulting in diminishing social skills, and ability to collaborate on an more direct, impromptu way.
As outlined in a 2007 BloombergBusinessweek article Why Is Nissan Mimicking Myspace?, Nissan Motors actually created their own social networking system exclusively for employees. Inspired by a similar network introduced by IBM Social Networking At IBM in years prior,  Nissan's system allows employees to share raw information, ideas, and create special interest groups. I would be curious to see how viable this network actually is today, given that it was created over 5 years ago. Also, is this type of network appropriate in all types of industry?  For example, it seems only natural that a technology innovator like IBM would adopt this sort of idea.  However, how approrpriate is this idea for an automaker? Is it necessary? How will these companies measure any increase or decrease in productivity resulting from this type of experimentation?