• by Emily Burg , February 13, 2007

Cisco Systems'acquisition last week of a social networking vendor could one day lead to more user-generated content like blogs and podcasts on corporate Web sites.

Since social-networking often includes rich media, the amount of traffic on a company's network grows as well when it is added. That, in turn, could provide a boost to Cisco's primary business--Internet infrastructure.

Cisco did not disclose the terms of its acquisition of San Francisco-based Five Across, Inc., which it expects to close by the end of April.

This is the latest move in the company's strategy to broaden its business portfolio and image into consumer electronics. CEO John Chambers appeared at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month. A multimedia advertising and rebranding campaign from Ogilvy L.A. launched last October.

Called "Welcome to the human network," that campaign focuses on the ways in which Cisco's Internet infrastructure enables people to connect and assemble their own networks--creating a smaller, interconnected world. Ads have appeared online, in broadcast and print, as well as location sponsorships.

"The ads are emotional, simple, physical explanations of what happens when you use the Cisco network to bring people together," explained Karl Barnhart, managing director of CoreBrand, for whom Cisco is a client.

The ads highlight stories of people who have used technology to connect to others in far-flung locations, or to solve problems in their own neighborhoods. Short videos of stories of people's experiences with the human network are posted online at Cisco.com, as are audio clips and links to blogs, as well as a link out to the Wikipedia definition of "human network."

Cisco's push into consumer electronics has coincided with its involvement in controversy surrounding the launch of Apple's iPhone. Cisco has owned the iPhone name since 2000, when it inherited it by acquiring InfoGear Technology. InfoGear was originally granted the iPhone trademark in 1997.

Cisco's iPhone is a wireless phone that allows for VoIP calls via the Skype Internet telephony service and is a product of Linksys, a Cisco Systems company. Cisco sued Apple over the use of the iPhone name, and has been actively advertising the iPhone to bolster recognition of its ownership of the name.

Barnhart speculated that the best possible resolution of the iPhone name ownership debacle could be a prominent working relationship between Cisco and Apple, which would bolster Cisco's consumer electronics ambitions.

But as beneficial as that might be for Cisco, "Cisco doesn't need to beg to work with Apple," Barnhart said. "In the end it will probably be negotiated, the same way [Steve] Jobs negotiated with Apple Records over the years."

That long-term trademark dispute was settled just last week.