Looking to network with Russian billionaires? Chances are you won’t be able to unless you get invited to the new social network being launched by the Russian billionaire, Mikhail Prokhorov. According to Mark O’Neill, Prokhorov is in the process of launching Snob.ru. Yes, he went ahead and called the social network “Snob.” Not only is he launching a website though, the billionaire has plans of launching a television show as well as a magazine.

The intro (which you can view via Snob.ru), is mostly in Russian so I have no idea what the site says (let me know if you can convert it for us!). No word on if this site will support OpenID though. Chances are good that Mr. Prokhorov doesn’t know much about portable identities but then again, nobody in this network need to worry about that since network comes with its very own membership card. The demo also displays a touch screen which is moved around with the same technology used with the iPhone.

You can then pick out people in various locations and their photo shows up in a holographic format. Well maybe not, but they try to make everything look really slick on their website. So slick that they may slightly overdo it. This network requires that you have two members invite you to get in, one more than the relatively exclusive Small World community.

Thankfully we got the hook up and have invites for the next 50 people meaning you will only need one more to confirm you. O.k., not really but if you want to get it to the network … well let’s face it, if you are reading this post, chances are you won’t. Tough luck!

Social networking sites initially gained traction thanks to Generation Y when Friendster launched 6 years ago. Then when Facebook opened its doors to the general public, the site experienced a surge in users that were over 40. I for one, now have two parents that are both active on Facebook. While it’s a weird feeling, I doubt it’s as weird as it is for middle and high schoolers that have their parents checking their online profiles to make sure they aren’t getting into trouble.

Generation Y has proven its willingness to switch social network sites on the drop of a dime. That’s what happened to Friendster when MySpace launched a few years back and many have begun to wonder if the same thing is destined for Facebook. So far, the older crowd has been successful at keeping themselves separate from the younger groups for the most part. That’s because its possible to use Facebook without ever interacting with people that you don’t know.

So what are the older Facebook users using the site for? Well, according to a Newsday article, they are using it the same way most people are using it: to find old friends. Professors are also using the site to connect with students. Not everything is the same for various age groups though. As the Newsday article states:

In addition to spending more time on social networks, young people will often have more than one MySpace profile or Facebook page for each of their personas, such as reflecting their artistic or musical tastes.

The older users on the other hand “have already developed fixed identities and are less likely to experiment with online identities.” There is also an interesting thing taking place between generations. One girl I spoke to yesterday said that one of her prior bosses will occasionally challenge her to a game of Scrabulous. As such, she feels it necessary to play the game in order to maintain their relationship.

While the generational gap makes for interesting studies of human behavior, one thing is definite: humans like to interact socially online just as much as they do offline. As to whether or not the boomers will chase away the younger users? So far everything points to a peaceful co-existence among multiple generations on the site. Whether or not that trend will continue, we will just have to wait and see.

Do you foresee any challenges arising due to the wide range of generations on Facebook and other social network sites? Do you have any personal experiences related to this?

Fred Wilson seems to think so. According to him, “The blogging revolution is the adult social network whereas Facebook style social networking is for teens and college kids.” This is just a generalized assertion with no statistical backing. Do adults comprise the majority of the bloggers? In this country they represent the majority of the population but I’m not so sure that they represent the majority of bloggers.

For most bloggers, writing is a self-centered activity. People write about their daily activities, their thoughts on life, and why their boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with them. People definitely write about other issues but I would guess that most bloggers are not as connected as Fred would imagine. I started thinking about this for a little bit and honestly at a certain point are social networks really necessary? It’s an extremely useful tool for those looking to build their network but how about those that aren’t?

According to Facebook the average number of users on the site are connected to 100 people. Does the novelty of social networks eventually wear out? How long can we collect contacts a network without getting overwhelmed by the noise? My Salesforce account and LinkedIn account are both two places where I’m free from the noise. Facebook on the other hand keeps me up to date on the happenings of 1,000 of my closest friends.

Do you think blogging is for adults? How frequently do you login to Facebook and other social networks?

Social networks have been racing to get their new languages launched. Today, Friendster announced that they are now available in Indonesian. Friendster has over 8 million registered users and 4 million monthly unique visitors in Indonesia alone. While Friendster is popular for dominating southeast Asia, the other social networks each have their own location and Facebook is also expanding rapidly into new territories.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Facebook opened their translations application to the general public and earlier this week MySpace’s latino portal exited beta. Social networks (or social platforms if you prefer) have realized that the largest players will most likely remain as large players for the long term. While there will be slight adjustments, the odds of a Facebook or MySpace crumbling overnight is highly unlikely as there are now dedicated user bases that have put in substantial time to build up their profiles.

Just as the internet has global appeal, so do social networks. They are currently the most effective tool for connecting the masses and are also transforming the way that society interacts with one another. Just as in the offline world, languages will continue to be a barrier to communications but photos and videos will continue to help cultures merge together. I continue to believe that social networks are the most effective platform for spreading values and ideas.

Over the next 6 months look for lack of language support to become a thing of the past as all the social networks become multi-lingual.

According to a report out today, approximately 70 percent of employers “have banned social network sites, such as Facebook.” This is a substantial number. I once worked as the Chief Technology Officer at a company that restricted the websites employees could visit. I didn’t make it long at that organization. According to the research 79 percent of “employers have disciplined staff for using social networking sites.”

The ironic thing is that 12 percent of bosses check their Facebook status on a regular basis. We need to get those bosses on Twitter! During the Gartner Symposium ITxpo in Las Vegas yesterday, over 80 percent of people polled said don’t ban Facebook at work. I don’t think that was quite surprising given the conference that the poll was taken at.

I have been seeing people on Twitter though that say they are banned from Facebook. Honestly, anyone that needs to have more digital social interaction can just add Twitter to their phone and add a few hundred followers and they’ll be good to go. Have you been banned from social networks at your job? Do you have your computer use monitored by your boss?

On a conference call announcing the Open Social foundation a couple weeks ago, Joe Kraus of Google at one point mentioned that Orkut would be launching their platform the same week that Hi5 did. Since then Google has been quiet about Orkut. A post on the Orkut developer blog states that they’ve discovered and fixed new bugs and the launch will be soon. There is no date anymore on the launch but one week prior to launching the platform Google will announce it on the Orkut blog.

It has been challenging for Orkut to launch and based on the feedback from a number of developers that I’ve spoken with, rushing to launch on other platforms isn’t really a high priority anymore as they are realizing that the growth is not as viral as it was on Facebook. I’ve also heard mixed feedback about the Hi5 platform and other platforms but then again for the leaders on the platform they have a nice head start but that’s about it.

I’m not quite sure what’s holding Orkut back but considering it’s Google’s platform they should probably be first to launch since they invented the OpenSocial standard. Regardless, it appears as though Facebook is continuing to dominate the social platforms. It will be interesting to see if OpenSocial can gain momentum as other platforms launch and more viral channels are opened.  Do you use Orkut?  Are you a developer of an app that’s about to launch on Orkut?   What do you think the future holds for this platform?

If managing your applications on three platforms wasn’t already enough for you, two more platforms will be going live next week: Orkut and hi5. While there are few details as to viral distribution on Orkut, hi5 has provided details about their viral distribution channels. Of particular significance is that “there are no limits to how many friends a user can invite.” This sounds similar to the Facebook platform when it launched.

These launches will be more significant than the Bebo launch considering that hi5 and Orkut are the 8th and 10th (respectively) most visited sites on the web according to Alexa.com. With no limits on invitations for friends we may see a similar gold rush to those applications that launched on the Facebook platform. Both platforms will launch using the OpenSocial standard bringing the total number of potential users via OpenSocial far greater than Facebook.

Add together MySpace’s platform and Facebook’s viral distribution channels and hi5 is setting up to be a significant launch. Next week will surely be a big week as the reach of social platforms is set to almost double. For one person, attempting to monitor all the action on all the platforms is extremely challenging but extremely exciting. For development teams building on each of the platforms, being ready for launch on all sites is not only challenging but close to impossible.

This first quarter of this year has been transformational for the social platform space.

I am a Twitter lover, I often tweet about where I going, who I am meeting, and what I am doing. I enjoy the conversations I have and have made some very good friends I would have otherwise never meet.

A friend of mine and I were discussing the types of things we tweet about and he had mentioned he didn’t approve of the messages I twittered. He said my messages seemed childish and I should try to be more professional on twitter.

He continued to say how twitter should be used to increase one’s personal brand and foster professional relationships. I countered with twitter being a form of expression and more of a way to stay connected.

We bantered back and forth a few times and agreed we wouldn’t agree. The entire argument left a bad taste in my mouth. I began to see twitter in a new light and it honestly bothered me.

I have to agree with my friend that I do see a good deal of people only using twitter for personal exploitation. Which is fine, but how long will people use a service that only gives them watered down versions of the people they are trying to interact with.

Now, I do use twitter as a very personalized RSS feed, but I can get a service like that almost anywhere. I think the real value in twitter is making real connections, not being spoon feed happy tid bits of information from people around the world.

How do you use twitter? Are you a personal micro blogger like me or more of a human evangelist like my friend? Do you see a turning point in twitter like Facebook, where people are tired of getting spammed? Let me know.

Wow, my mother would be proud I am taking her threats and using them in my daily life. I never really understood how foolish the logic ‘all your friends’ argument really was until the other night. I was eating with some friends trying to convince one of them to join twitter and other social networks.

Certainly the romantic setting of an Italian restaurant isn’t the right place to get into a Facebook debate, but I have some nerdy friends. Anyway, one of my friends is stark anti-social networking hardliner and I am convinced she will never convert.

Several of my friends and I worked her over through the course of the night but we were unable to change her opinion. We tried several arguments and at one point in the night almost resorted to bribery in the form of a very expensive piece of cheese cake.

Our arguments ranged from building stronger community and creating business contacts to the afore mentioned “all your friends are doing it.” I don’t know if it was the Sambuca and coffee talking but that last one sent my friend off.

Her argument centered on two main points: Bandwagoning and time management. Basically she said this, she was tired of her ‘technologically superior’ friends telling her about the latest and greatest new thing.

On this point I looked around the table and noticed she was the only one who wasn’t texting and twittering all night. I also noticed she is by far one of the best conversationalist I know. I honestly believe there is a connection between the two. She engages in conversation instead of annoying A.D.D. way that most technophiles handle it.

Her point on time management really sent a chill down the collective spine of the table. She confessed that if she tried social networking she would have to give up something to fit it into her day. Her social schedules is by far one of the busiest I know of and she wasn’t willing to give up any real world connections to create digital ones.

Finally she looked at me and said, “if all my friends are on social networks why do I need to be,” she stated with cold eyes. “I already know all of you.” She had won the argument and she knew it.

At times I really do think my friend is right other times I don’t. The point is this, my friend fails to see any value in social networking and until she does no reason will ever be compelling enough to make her join. Doing something because all your friends are doing it really isn’t that great of an argument.

How many of you agree with my friend that there is still a lack of compelling reasoning to join social networks? How many of you think you could convince her to join the social networking ‘revolution’? If you send me an argument I will forward it along, I am always looking for a reason to bother her.

LinkedIn will be launching company directory pages today. The pages show employees from the company as well as company data which has been compiled by Capital IQ. Aside from the addition of company data, these new pages are pretty much the same thing as network pages within Facebook. The only difference is that other people can view the pages without being members.

I’ve discussed this before, social networks are transforming the way that businesses find new employees. A college student trying to figure out which company to go join when they graduate (if that’s what they want to do), can simply do a search in Facebook and find all the employees that work there. After browsing through some of the employee profiles they can get a pretty good feeling for if that company is a place they want to work.

While I think these directory pages are a great addition, I don’t think LinkedIn profiles give you much insight to the personalities of the individuals. Instead they are promotional tools to simply display how connected you are as well as what type of clients you have worked with (via their recommendations system). As such, I think a lot of these features would be better leveraged on Facebook. Do you think these new pages are useful?

Image via Caroline McCarthy