Last week, I blogged about IDC’s forecast for the social networking market, which it expects to grow at an astounding rate of 815% between 2006 and 2009. This week, another analyst firm, this time Gartner, weighs in with its predictions. 

According to eWeek’s Clint Boulton, Gartner expects the social networking software market “to grow at a compound annual revenue growth of 41.7 percent through 2011.” That’s obviously a huge difference from IDC’s heady predictions for the market, and it’s hard to say which prediction is more accurate. But at least both firms agree that social networking software will enjoy significant growth in the coming years, however wide a gap in their forecasts. 

Boulton, reporting from the floor of the Web Innovations summit in Las Vegas, also details Gartner analysts’ theory that “digital natives” — those who’ve grown up with social networking tools — will be the ones to drive the enterprise segment of the social software market.  

As these digital natives grow up, they’re moving into the work force, taking with them blogs, wikis, mashups, RSS feeds and other so-called Web 2.0 social networking tools that will enable them to collaborate more freely in an enterprise environment, said Gartner analyst Anthony Bradley.  

“They bring with them a set of expectations of how they will interact and the tools they’ll use to interact, and they can be woefully disappointed walking into organizations that don’t have some of the Web 2.0 tools that they’re used to using for building relationships and getting things done,” Bradley said.

Digital natives will thus usher in what Gartner calls the Enterprise 2.0, where users will use rich Internet applications, social software and a Web platform to execute tasks. 

If I’m interpreting Bradley right, he seems to be saying that for businesses to compete for top talent, they better get on board with Web 2.0. Otherwise, the best and the brightest will find a different employer that has.