Social networking...is there a business model?
With the success of Friendster leading the way, social networking is the next big thing since WiFi, Web Services and Web logs (or blogs as most of us here know them) seemed to create tons of post-dot-bust buzz. Last night at Stanford business school, a sold-out crowd of 300+ people, was supposed proof that companies like LinkedIn (which I quite like...and who's CEO Reid Hoffman was especially good in describing the social networking space and his idea of several "graphs"), Plaxo (by one of the Napster founders), and of course Friendster, are part of this new consumer Internet revival.
A great writeup from Stewart Butterfield is complete with quotes from the mostly tongue-in-cheek panel discussion and completely glib generalities from Friendster CEO Jonathan Abrams who had almost nothing of significance to say...and made it quite clear that Friendster is just like any other dotcom from the boom years. Create buzz and get big fast and then figure out what you'll really make money on.
Ross Mayfield, another one of the panelists, aptly described SocialText's efforts at bringing wikis to the corporate world...and has an excellent blog here.