Reuters is planning to enter the social networking arena with a website aimed at financial workers. 

The news organisation hopes to attract a large percentage of the 70,000 traders, fund managers and other financial staff who already use its messaging service into the virtual world.

Chief executive Tom Glacer said that the site would not be aimed at teenagers as with traditional social networking sites such as MySpace, but would allow users to share research and trading models. 

Membership of the site, which is expected to launch later this year, will be open only to Reuters subscribers.

Reuters has already experimented with social networking by posting a journalist in the Second Life online community.

Glacer claimed that advertising at its virtual offices in Second Life had already paid its costs 10 times over.