Systems that just aggregate social links don’t have much use beyond the initial “how many friends can I get?!” burst. Services like MySpace are successful due to the double fists of (a.) a suite based approach by providing blogs, social network, and photos, and, (b.) being a closed system. The second is the key differentiator between myspace and what we call “the web.” MySpace is a roach-motel: data goes in, but it doesn’t come out.

On the other hand, I’m eager to start seeing enterprise vendor’s (small and large) attempts at incorporating social and collaborative software ideas into their products. That’s the trend that’s exciting: seeing how consumer technology drives enterprise technology.

It’s lost all useful meaning and to me, represents a waste of my time. I look at something like MySpace or facebook and I think “What in the holy hell is this doing for me?” Once I used facebook to look up a friend’s email address, but that was because the campus directory delisted him for some reason.

Folksonomy, on the other hand, says to me “Leverage your work and the work of others to provide some immediate benefit.” Flickr and del.icio.us provide so much more worth. Even 43things/places/people/allconsuming are useful (though to a lesser degree).

I dunno, maybe I’m just jaded on the concept.