Social Networking Meets the Mainstream - Page 2

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Fat bellies

"It's a community based on, of all things, fat bellies," Ennis said. "It's a fascinating phenomenon." The comments are encouraging, showing that a strong community will police itself, he said. The 24,000 members have generated more than $500,000 in new ad revenue.

At perhaps the other end of the spectrum, the United States Air Force is using social media extensively, despite some cultural barriers. The military must balance information dissemination and security issues, but it's working that out. For example, Air Force personnel use chat extensively via a PC-based application. Each person is allowed a limited amount of friends with whom to chat, and the application, developed by Roundarch, is secure.

While the majority of social networking services don't make money -- or even generate revenue -- their evolution may mean new angles for vendors that can provide solid support. For example, Vindicia, a provider of integrated billing and fraud management services, had a booth at the show. Vindicia acts as the interface between Web publishers and backend payments clearing services, allowing publishers to take credit cards in payment for services such as subscriptions.

Aside from protecting publishers and online merchants from outright credit card fraud, Vindicia can provide reports showing which users tend to create a negative environment for others. Because trust is important for social networking, Vindicia spokeswoman Jen Erale told InternetNews.com, monitoring what could be called social fraud can increase the strength of the network.

When you hear old-school values like this applied to social networking, you know it's growing up.