The Internet was originally created to allow various governmental agencies to communicate with one another on a network that was superior to the cumbersome circuit-switching networks of the late 1960's. The rise of Usenet some ten years later was the precursor to today's web forums where users independently add their own content with little technological expertise. Academia was the first to vigorously use these newfound interconnected networks to share information about research with other academic professionals around the world.

In the mid-1990's, the Internet gained popularity among the general public. With the creation of the World Wide Web by Englishman Tim Berners-Lee, users could use web browsers to view web pages with ease.

Then, something happened. A couple years after we recovered from the Y2K bug and the dot com bust where people threw their money at the idea of utilizing the Internet for profit with no solid purpose, we began to look for the next biggest thing. What did we come up with?

Social networking.

This amazing new technology swept us off our feet by offering us absolutely nothing new. What it did bring to the table, though, is a bunch of gossip that people just couldn't get enough of anywhere else.

And so the Internet went from a trove of knowledge that was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, to a coffee shop packed with people so obsessed with themselves that they freely give away all of their personal information for the chance to chatter about their new haircut as if anyone cared.

The problem is that we are concentrating vasts amounts of time on the Internet speaking at great lengths about keeping up with the Joneses and this is now taking prime time spots on other media. If the Internet was a newspaper, the Editorial section would be the size of a phonebook. The gossip isn't the whole problem, though. It is that our popular news networks are paying attention to this chatter as if its important, too. You can now find CNN dedicating some of their air time to what people are saying about issues on Twitter. There is positively no educational value in these sound bytes spoken from wannabe political critics.

This has also forced web developers to pay attention to this distraction known as social networking, because it is popular. Before spending hours building up your friend base and tweeting about how your coffee tastes, take a step back and look at your audience. You may be in for a suprise.

Buzz is undeniably a powerful occurrence that can catapult you into the spotlight. Good reviews from respected critics are golden. Word-of-mouth recommendations from lifelong friends are priceless. Advice on your love life from the guy who checks your water meter every couple of weeks is downright worthless. These examples have something in common:

The source of the suggestions is what decides whether it is important to you.

There is not enough emphasis on the type of exposure social networking can allot you. It is more akin to someone shouting from a rooftop than it is speaking to someone in their living room after being invited in. Even though most of these sites require you to accept another user into your circle, acceptance is usually granted with little thought (do you really have 450 friends like Facebook claims you do?). Sometimes, depending on your product or service, shouting from the rooftop can help. And sometimes it can hurt.

If you decide to spend hours and days setting up your social networking appendage to your company, it had better be worth it. Moreover, it had better follow suit with your overall marketing strategy rather than just an addition to it.

Imagine you see a Facebook fan club for a defense contractor looking for a security bid in Baghdad. Does this make any sense? This will seriously put into question the credibility of this contractor, because they have shown that some of their time is spent keeping up with the Joneses rather than researching what kind of weapons are being used by the current insurgents.

If you don't want to sit down at a bar and promote your business over a pint of Guinness, then don't bother with social networks.

We have even gone as far to rename the web with its new social networks as Web 2.0, as if we have greatly improved the Internet. It seems that Web 0.9 would be a more fitting name.

About the author: Andrew Evans is a web applications developer for Aexis Empire, located in Berkeley, CA.