Social Networking

Although specific social networking applications come and go - and popular applications can vary widely by geography, age, and occupation - the concept of finding a place online where everybody knows your name (or at least everyone you choose to connect to) continues to recieve much attention and investment.

The challenges here are not primarily technical but social and strategic. When should you build a new social network versus creating a presence in an existing network?

Enterprises today recognize that they can't simply ignore the impact of social networking on both employees and customers, but often struggle to define the appropriate role social networking plays in a business context.

The fundamental goal of social networking applications is to represent in an online context the connections between individuals which exist in the offline world, as well as to enable new connections to be created, nurtured, and maintained.