Social Networking

      Social Networking sites have many corporate applications and are as the previous post shows, going to be strictly corporate entities from now on that look to use the free ad space to control the marketplace.  As for real world application of Social Networking sites as corporate networking sites, it might be interesting to look at the rise of Linkedin as an example of a site that promotes and encourages users to make corporate connections and reccomendations.
      In an ever changing global marketplace, employees have come to rely on very few things that remain constant, and being forced to change their mindset, schedule, work habits, etc. are all factors that come into play when corporate policy changes with management.  Social Networking sites are a fantastic idea to allow executives to express their opinions in a forum that may not be so rigid and controlling.  It actually lets employees drop their guard and participate in brainstorming sessions that do not require perfect adherance to policy or Roberts' rules, etc.
      When Mr. Ghosn took over Nissan, as reported in Business Week, October 30, 2007 by Kenji Hall, there were understandably very mixed reactions, and in order to avoid the types of bureaucratic gridlock that can occur in such situations, Mr. Ghosn searched for ideas to build consenus and use the team he had to move forward.  After his visit to IBM, he incorporated a simple strategy that IBM had been using for quite some time to avoid time wasting and to glean the best possible ideas from his team in the least time.
      There will be an enormous number of applications that can be seen from the Mars Bar marketing attempt seen in "Analysis: Real Facebook shop in virtual world breathes life into Mars",  Marketing
Week. Feb 21, 2008 that spawned a number of competitors and imitators to follow suit.  Unfortunately, mass marketers have now been using Facebook as an ad platform for everything from oil changes to non-profit charities for quite some time.  As a result, Facebook become a commodity rather than just a "place for friends".
      Unfortunately for users of Facebook, this corporate transition has been the ultimate in privacy concerns and all of users' information was put up on the block privately through many different companies whose sole goal is information collection for marketing manipulation
 in the long term.  In the short term it means a voluntary dissolution of privacy rights that will lead to an erosion of civil rights as far as cyberspace is concerned.
      There is no doubt in my mind, that this erosion of "virtual rights" in an already extraordinarily apathetic culture that has become over the last ten years a pure and unadulterated oligarchy, we have already and will continue to see the effects of civil rights degeneration for generations to come.  the New Citizens Supreme Court decision in January 2010 to allow corporations the rights of private citizens is one factor that has led to these social networking sites losing any ability to remain democratic platforms.  Quite simply, people are addicted to the access they gain from these sites, and will give up their rights of ownership to their own personal content and mold their preferences to this medium in a similar way that they have relinquished their time and attention to television, the "opiate" of the masses.