News.com has run a Knowledge@Warton piece regarding some of the business aspects of social networking and its future in the business and social worlds.

Here’s an excerpt from the end:

The broader social networks may find that there are only so many people interested in networking, that many of those interested in joining social networks won’t pay fees of any sort, and that, as the novelty of networking fades, members will drift away, especially if networks seem to deliver less than they promise.

As a result, some social networks will disappear. Others, the betting goes, will be subsumed by bigger fish interested in using them to provide ancillary benefits to existing customers. Zero Degrees, a Los Angeles-based social networking service, has already been devoured by Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp. Conversely, experts also expect that existing Web-based businesses will add social networking to their services, thus ratcheting up further the pressure on the start-ups. Monster.com–which might expect to see its business cannibalized by social networking aimed at helping people connect for jobs–recently added networking to its offerings, telling subscribers that it will help “introduce you to the right people.”

All in all, the betting is that only a handful will be left standing after another 18 to 24 months have passed. “I can’t imagine that there is room for more than one dominant social network, one dominant business network and one network for special interests,” Croson says.

Source: News.com, “Need a job? How about a date?”