I think the key is that business owners need to decide on a strategy for empowering their employees with the permission to use social networking tools. There should be clear guidelines relating to the purpose of the tools - at least for work. Smart companies will integrate social networking thinking into their wider plans.

Like any network situation (I hate the ones where people randomly give away business cards) the question to be asked relates to utility. Members of a network must establish their value by making themselves useful to other members, so that the ultimate effect is that they will be sought when the need arises. That means it may take some time before critical mass is reached and the transactions can offer a return on the investment.

Right now I’d venture most people have no purpose and so it becomes a wheel-spinning waster of time.

However, I think there’s a lot of crap in there as well - and I’d really like to have more control over the number of application invitations - I mean, I have zero interest in how many zombie chumps my friends have turned…

On balance, presently, I’m getting enough value out of Facebook to maintain my account. But it is borderline. I think that if my current role didn’t require me to get my head into this space more deeply, I may have dropped out at some stage along the journey - and I’m certainly not disagreeing with your argument at it’s core - i.e. doing ROI analysis on the tool for yourself.