Recently, Steve Ballmer made some comments regarding social networking that were widely ridiculed (and probably more appropriately, labeled as self-serving since Microsoft has been looking to acquire a stake in Facebook and would be happy to drive down the price):

"I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there?s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people," Mr. Ballmer told Times Online yesterday.

On his blog, Marc Andreessen wrote a response making use of a common conceit: applying comments about a modern phenomenon to historical phenomena in kind of a reductio ad absurdum argument. A brief excerpt:

"I think these things [televisions] are going to have some legs, and yet there?s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people."

"I think these things [hip hop music] are going to have some legs, and yet there?s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people."

"I think these things [mobile phones] are going to have some legs, and yet there?s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people."

Now, I assume his point is that so-called disruptive technologies are often dismissed at the time as a fad and, quite frankly, it can be very hard to tell a fad from something truly transformative. This brings up a larger question though: is social networking more like television, hip-hop, and mobile phones, or is it more like video arcades, pocket bikes, and the "Rachel" haircut? What features of a trend might we use to determine this?

I started considering this question recently because I have a guilty secret: I don't really get mainstream social networking site even though I make heavy use of technology in general. I certainly understand why teenagers and college students use them, and I take part in lots of implicit social networks via listservs and other online communities, and I've even made use of some sites like last.fm, but I don't see why I would care to get seriously involved in Facebook or MySpace (Andreessen's company, Ning, makes more sense to me for reasons that will become clear in a moment).

My issue is fundamentally about what one might call personal power. I remember reading one of the Carlos Castaneda books when I was younger, and Don Juan at one point counsels the narrator to cut off his ties with friends and colleagues back home in an effort to erase his personal history and thereby increase his personal power, which is diluted by his past and relationships (I'm strongly paraphrasing; I read this book probably 15 years ago, but this part stuck with me for some reason).? However you feel about the mystical mumbo-jumbo in these books, it's hard to not see the kernel of truth in this idea: you can increase your perceived status simply by limiting others' access to you.

This brings me back to the dilemma of social networking sites, and a rule that I've just made up that I'll call the inverse social power rule.? Simply put, the likelihood of finding a contact on one of these sites is inversely proportional to the quality of the contact. The problem is that people who have power have no need of additional access paths to themselves, while those who are trying to rise in the ranks are much more willing to be "promiscuous" in allowing social access in the hopes of making a connection with someone of higher status. Blogging uses the same logic: I divulge information about what I'm doing and thinking in the hopes that I might attract smarter, more interesting people to say or think nice things about me, and maybe give me some money to do some work for them (hint, hint).

So if I am a high-school or college student, and therefore I am generally on the weak side of the power equation in most relationships, social networking makes sense.? If I'm a CEO or a celebrity, I want to limit my access as much as possible and avoid social networking like the plague, since that's just giving the milk away for free.? If I'm somewhere in the middle, I want to be more like the CEO, not more like the college student, so I want to make extremely judicious use of these types of sites lest I give the appearance of a weaker social status.

You'll note that Marc Andreessen does have a page on MySpace, but he hasn't logged in in nearly 2 years, and has 0 friends, revealing basically nothing about himself. Now that's a MySpace page for a CEO.? As far as I can tell, there is no real Steve Ballmer listed there, although there are at least 2 parody profiles.? It's pretty much the same story on Facebook, although Marc does list his companies.? I somehow doubt he would respond to a poke though.

And therein lies my problem with social networking sites, and why I tend to agree a bit more with Ballmer than with Andreessen on this one, although I think Marc has a very different perspective because Ning is for building sites that allow for topical rather than status-oriented social connections, which breaks my power rule completely. I honestly believe that at this point in my life and career, I am better served by avoiding them than by joining them, and I wonder how many upwardly mobile 20-somethings are going to be frantically deleting their profiles from these sites when they realize that they have moved to the strong side of the power equation.

In conclusion, I have no doubt that entreprenurs can profit from social networking sites since they do have benefit to the ones that need them.? However, I ultimately believe that they will not have transformative power because unlike a technology such as a cellphone, which has become essential as a tool for increasing one's social status and only becomes more vital to the owner over time, social networking sites will continue to lose members just as they are becoming truly valuable, draining their ability to make a significant cultural impact.