Socal Networking is on FIRE

What is going on here. Social networking is out of control. The battle is on. Do you think us users will be better off?

Over the last few weeks, there have been a bunch of interesting announcements (and resulting articles and discussions) lately around social networking. Here is what I see as the big ones.

• Microsoft invests in Facebook, gets to sell advertisements.

• Facebook announces "Facebook Ads".

• mySpace announces the "self service advertising service."

• mySpace joins Google's social networking platform.
  

There are two huge battles going on here. One is ... which social network will grow and retain the most users. This in some ways is the battle of the application. Facebook with their applications and now mySpace with their Google wigits.

The other is around revenue generation. With this many users, how can the companies generate the kinds of revenue that Google has managed to generate (and the resulting company valuation) with their advertisements.

But back to my original question. Will we be better off as a result?

I think not.