Podio, a very smart, easy to use and easy to customize collaboration platform, is adding a cool feature to its already successful application: the Employee Network.

Podio offers standard business applications for project management, CRM, accounting, HR, and enables users to easily build or customize any apps according to their specific need. Across all apps, there is a collaboration layer that allows people to rapidly exchange information and crowd source various tasks. The service, in beta since 2009, opened to the public in March 2011 and its customer-base now counts over 40K organizations.

Today, Podio is adding more social capabilities to its offering with the Employee Network, a new feature that instantly connects all employees, no matter what department or office they work in. Basically, it is a social networking application built inside Podio.

The Employee Network is free for unlimited number of employees — user management and moderation can be added for $1 per employee per month.

Additionally, Podio is making external collaboration free for Podio Premium customers: before businesses had to pay for each user, even for the occasional external collaborators.