we have seen networking tools in general and more specialized networking tools like lagipadi - a networking tool for media professionals. But, what about people who develop tools like networking tools? Now, IBM has that answer ready. It has launched a networking tool for software developers.

With this tool, developers across the world can collaborate on open standards, find information more easily and work together. If this kind of tool was available to Linus Torvalds and other Linux pioneers, may be, Linux would have gotten its rightful place.

Users can customise their profile to include contacts, preferred content, real time feeds from forums, blogs and wikis.

Called as MyDeveloperWorks, this networking tool will soon add integration to other social networking sites. Whatever you do, you have to talk twitter. And yes, IBM will add that too for MyDeveloperWorks. It will have updates, blogs, wikis, plugs into facebook, myspace and twitter.

Launched in 1999, developerWorks currently has an estimated 8 million IT professionals as its users globally and helps developers access a variety of IT resources scattered across the web (Business Standard)

DeveloperWorks itself is pretty old with 8 million IT professionals. Now, if they are connected with MyDeveloperWorks, there is nothing like it for the developer community and most importantly open source community.

For example, as economic stimulus funding accelerates electronic medical records projects across the healthcare industry, developers are looking to more quickly gain skills around XML and open standards to facilitate greater data management and information integration features. Using My developerWorks, a developer can tailor their personalized homepage to receive content on XML healthcare standards, join professional groups on stay current on new skills resources.

Wow, that would make the world flatter and faster. Medical records digitization is the next growth industry which some heavy players invested heavily in it. This kind of tools for developers could also reduce the development cost of a software company. Isn’t this great?