I've been doing some work on social networking recently. Specifically my column in the UK's Sunday Telegraph newspaper has found a number of companies that have used the idea very much to their advantage - Christopher Ward Watches, for example, gets its customers to talk about what would go into the design of their dream watch and then designs it - once a year - as a limited edition for the members to buy.
I mention that purely because I want anyone who is as yet unconverted to understand that this Web 2.0 stuff does actually work, when it sets its mind to it.
Unfortunately there are others who disagree and with good reason. Take this panel discussion among a number of BBC folk over here. 'Overly critical' isn't an adequate phrase to describe the tone, but it makes a number of good points. Looking at the people I follow on Twitter (I'm on as GuyClapperton if you want to follow me) I see in the last half an hour I know what one of them is eating for lunch, I'm delighted Kate's central heating is fixed and I see Ben is into Drum'n'Bass.
It would be wrong to say there's no useful stuff in there as well, and of course that nice Mr. Obama used Twitter to bring a lot of young people into the electoral processwhen they'd been feeling pretty alienated. I do wonder, though, what proportion of people are wasting their time whilst persuading themselves they're keeping up to date with technology and trends - and what the implications are for bandwidth.