Friendster, LinkedIn In Trouble?

Social networksMolly Wood, of CNET asks

Is it really true that free services can't be effective business plans? Or is it possible that--gasp!--social networking isn't really that tenable an idea after all?

I think the issue of what are you going to "do" there is central to social networking software. If I sign up for Orkut (did that in the past, but haven't been there in ages), Tribenet, Friendster, FaceBook or any of those kind of communities, I do end up spending lots of time maintaining my account there, but that's all. With flickr, furl, or del.ici.ous the networking is part of doing something else that is worth doing. Maybe that is the key.