social networking living up to promises?

Social this, social that and all things social represent the new buzz word trends. The big question is whether or not social networking is living up to its promises? Promises - what promises? Well for advertisers, that means extending product and service reach. For job search [recruiters and job hunters] that means making new social connections that allow recruiters to reach new pools of candidates and for job seekers the obvious - make the necessary connections to get a new job. Well it's been over a year - more like two and what has social networking delivered on? Well the jury is still out but it's not looking good for social networking.

Why is social networking having such a challenge delivering anything meaningful other than blips and sound bites that most aren't even listening to? Well for starters, according to path, the new social networking site, it really just isn't possible to manage the hundreds and thousands of relationships that Twitter and Facebook users are obsessed with establishing. Can you really keep up with one of 150,000 followers that you interact with once if that? Perhaps, you can now begin to see why the tens of thousands of followers and fans aren't delivering. Quite simply, they aren't listening -- they have tuned you out -- because they don't know you or even care. This of course is bad news for job hunters and especially for advertisers. Sounds, like the problem here is the classic "bigger is better" myth. If you're looking for job do you really need to be connected to 5,000 recruiters that aren't listening or 25 recruiters that know you, are listening and going to bat for you?

While the jury is still out and social networking still has a chance of providing some meaningful value, it looks like social networking is having problems living up to promises. With that being said, i don't know how optimistic i would be on expecting much from social networking. You could on the other hand, give Path a spin and see what happens. After all, managing small groups is easier and more realistic anyway.