• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, January 19, 2009

While both Facebook and LinkedIn continue to make inroads with the business community, LinkedIn appears to be moving more rapidly to address the unique social computing needs of its users, according to new research by independent analyst firm CMS Watch.

"Both platforms are increasingly important to professionals worldwide, but LinkedIn is beginning to make more progress towards services that can support enterprise-oriented social computing," said CMS Watch analyst Jarrod Gingras.

Overall, LinkedIn outperformed Facebook in CMS Watch's "Professional Networking" and "Community of Practice" use-cases.

From a functional standpoint, the report found that LinkedIn surpasses Facebook in Information Filtering and Discussion--although neither platform provides the broader blog, wiki, and project tracking services that support broader enterprise collaboration.

The findings are part of an update to CMS Watch's Enterprise Social Software & Collaboration Report 2009, which evaluates 26 social computing platforms against 11 potential enterprise use-cases.

Vendors reviewed include IBM, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Jive, Telligent, Awareness, Drupal, SocialText, Lithium, and Ning, as well as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Businesses, CMS Watch found, can use LinkedIn groups as internal and external discussion boards and link-sharing areas. Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn participants can be pre-authorized by e-mail domain, can keep track of discussions through notifications, and can search group content.

In addition, LinkedIn has chosen to slowly control the release of several "approved" applications for professional use--unlike Facebook, which allows any developer to post applications.

Several official LinkedIn applications target enterprise users, such as a SlideShare application, as well as a Huddle application that provides lightweight file-sharing and collaboration. There are no native document collaboration services in Facebook.