LifeCasting and Social Networking, What is the value?

Of course today is a fitting day for the perfunctory review of 2007. Unlike the trend to increasingly produce a review with still 1/12th of the year to go, I wait until the last day passed. According to the volume of articles and coverage in both technology and general interest news, Social Networking and its close cousin LifeCasting (e.g., Twitter, Kyte.tv) emerged as mass market phenomenons in 2007. These services exist first and foremost to entertain. As such they should be analyzed in the competitive market for entertainment. Right now these services are highly successful forms of entertainment. This also means that they are subject to fads, fickleness, and the next “hot” thing. They don’t deliver much direct value to the individual (marginal efficiencies in keeping in touch with friends). The benefits are outweighed by the costs of information overload and friend inflation.