How many social networks have you been invited into? LinkedIn? Facebook? Ning? Vox? Basically, there are lots of social networks and they seem to spring up at least every month. And that's the problem. We have, essentially, social network balkanization. There is no connector between or among the networks because each network want's to build an impressive registered and active userbase for VC and other investors. Chris Pirillo has a good, long post on the topic and this is a great quote from it:
So, each of these ?Web 2.0? efforts wants to be the next success story – right? Why, then, do they not understand that the ?Holy Grail? of social networking is in eliminating the walls between social networks? It?s not just about doing yet another mashup – it?s about bridging existing gaps.
Source: Social Networks: We Need Bridges, Not Silos ~ Windows Fanatics
We're at a point where maybe the real money would be finding a was to link your LinkedIn profile to Facebook to Plaxo to Twitter to … whatever. Not likely though, I still have to multiple IM networks to connect with all my friends and colleagues.
Here's to hoping.
