The  social networking realm is still going strong, according to Computer Weekly and Forrester Research.

“Business spending on Web 2.0 technologies will rise over the next five years, growing 43% each year to reach £2.3bn globally by 2013, according to Forrester Research.

The five-year forecast projected that business spending on social networking technologies, RSS, blogs, wikis, mashups and podcasting will rise as firms try to gain a competitive advantage from social networking technologies by connecting closer with customers and improving employee collaboration.

“Social computing and Web 2.0 marketing is still in its infancy, and in general, the market is still in an experimentation phase, but in the long run, the effect of Web 2.0 will be enormous,” said Forrester Research Analyst Oliver Young.

Large enterprises such as General Motors, McDonald’s, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance and Wells Fargo have all made heavy use of these tools, and 56% of North American and European enterprises consider Web 2.0 to be a priority in 2008, according to the study.

Currently, large businesses are spending more on employee collaboration tools than customer-facing Web 2.0 technologies, but Forrester expects that trend to reverse by next year. By 2013, investment in customer-facing Web 2.0 technology will dwarf spending on internal collaboration software by nearly a billion dollars.”