If you have 347 followers on Twitter , what are the chances  that
they'll click on the same online ad you clicked on last night? This is
the kind of question that advertisers and researchers at MIT and IBM
are dying to know the answer to, according to Stephen Baker, in the
June 1, 2009 article in BusinessWeek, "What's A Friend Worth."

Jeffrey Rayport, formerly of Harvard Business School, reports in an article in BusinessWeek, May 18, 2009, "The Shift To A Social Web," that
a shift is underway that is ushering in the next stage in the battle
for influence on the Web, which involves companies such as Google,
Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL and others. This battle will change the way
we use the Internet and how advertising is used. Rayport sees the
capability of people taking their social identity from site to site,
which means Web companies are no longer in the business building
"destination sites,", but rather, social networking players are racing
to extend their influence over the entire Web by exporting their social
features to all sites.  We may even see Google's cited mission "to organize the world's information" change to "organize the world's people."

Friendships have changed drastically, particularly among Gen X'ers
and Gen Y'ers, because of the technological tools of social networking
sites. The really successful networkers combine face-to-face
relationships with the online connections such as Facebook and
LinkedIn, to keep the network of friends and business connections alive.

Many companies now are realizing the goldmine of marketing and
promotion that exists and are using social networking to their
advantage, which may in turn sound the eventual death knell for
traditional advertising. Other companies, such as Hewlett-Packard and
IBM are examining employee relationships inside the companies with the
intent to improve communication and knowledge.

A third area of social networking--of personal opportunity--is an
important development. Entrepreneurs and recruiters and career managers
realize the power of social networking, using it to create business
opportunities and recruit talent. In essence, we are witnessing a great
social and technological experiment in which millions of people around
the globe are working and socializing in oceans of data. And
advertisers are now realizing they can understand better people's
attitudes, preferences and psychology by studying social networking
sites.

Of course this massive amount of information produced by social
networking sites is not all good, and much of it can be inaccurate,
irrelevant or just plain boring. So the issue of information literacy
rises to the fore--the ability of people to access, assess and use
information wisely from the Internet, including social networking
sites-- in an intelligent manner.

So where do we get the best information?  From our friends, maybe
the only trusted source? Friendship data promise insights into not only
the marketplace but also the corporation itself. Researchers now can
trace the hidden networks, identifying both the people who transmit
valuable information and those who may actually block it, and how
people can bypass them.  Some companies now study their internal
networks, and actually suggest friends to employees, much the same as a
networker might arrange a personal luncheon between two strangers for
mutual benefit.

For managers and executives who have launched themselves into using
social networks for business purposes, the challenge becomes how to
interpret friendship data and how to manage these networks and fit them
into employee careers.

There is no question that the value in online friendships for both
businesses and individuals alike is poised to grow and be used for
purposes beyond what we can now imagine.

Ray B. Williams is Co-Founder of Success IQ University and
President of Ray Williams Associates, companies located in Vancouver
and Phoenix, providing leadership training, personal growth and
executive coaching services. www.successisqu.com