Thomas Power the chairmen of eCademy asked which social network was the best.  My answer is below.  Thought I would share

I think the challenge is not so much which one is best overall they all offer a range of features that are attractive to people for different reasons. The challenge with this emerging market in my view is as follows:

1. People ultimately will belong to several social networks and will want to integrate and exchange information between each environment. This means there needs to a set of data exchange standards developed in something like XML. History is littered with people who try to remain isolated and they either lose their momentum as something more open comes along or get integrated via third party.

2. You only have one life: The social networks today seemed to be split by business and personal life in some respects with different players. This is not a realistic state of affairs, again the need for integration will arise. We must therefore think about creating multiple views of commonly held data that enables you present specific subsets of information to different audiences, colleagues; friends, competitors; clients; employees etc.....I personally run ecademy (lightly today), linkedIn, myspace, you tube, google account, plaxo, blogger, technorati and stumble upon, plus a host of other associations. I want to integrate all of this.

3. Functionality roadmaps converge and evolve: The investment levels in the infrastrucutre tools to support social network is one of the new goldrushes right now with massive investment from Venture capitalists, major technology players and literally anyone with time and an idea. That is great. but as student of history in the work of software, services and technology the economics of this will eventually drive convergence and competition down to a few key players who have the fastest components and ease of integration. The core business of a spcial network overtime is to increase the ability of people to communicate, stay current with their network and create opportunities, fulfil interests and integrate and organise the deluge of data and information we are now faced with. This means the technology whilst critical to the business at one level will eventualyl disappear beneath the road and become the basic fabric of sociaety and it will the services and ease of use, integration and value add that the service providers offer that will make the difference.

4. Creating a sense of community that feels personal: Everyone sees the world differently, therefore the ability to make the environment feel exactly how you need it is an essential element of the roadmap going forward, this means the Human computer interface evolution and multiple touch points will evolve to reflect personal needs, so we need to consider the sense fo access anywhere with dyanmic reprofiling of the view and experience on any devices based on who is using the device.

5. Commercial models will change: The more people use the social networking tools to help them in their lives the more people will expect it to be simply there from any service provider. The pardox of this space is no matter how much people value it and are happy to pay in the early stage market, ultimately the functionality will become a base expectation and the services and delivered over the network become the asset and most likely paid for on a per use basis or negotiated price or bundled with other service charges such as ISP / Mobile operator / Utilitiy services or included in employee packages and benefits as it will be the same tools for work and play.

And on.......................but lets stop there.