While some companies are embracing the whole social network outbreak, some companies use them a little, while others turn and run away. If you think about the social networks as it was for domain names back in the late 90's many companies are making a mistake by not fully staking out their brand names on these networks.

It is really about brand identity and recognition. Would you want some kid using lets say the "nautica" brand name as his handle on myspace? Of course you wouldn't, especially if you were the company Nautica. Companies will eventually wake up and try to retake their brand identities from these kids and will end up wasting time and money. Many companies could have stopped this early if they would have embraced the social networking model earlier. Even if it meant logging on and "squatting" on their own name reserving it for later.

With the ever growing popularity of social networks and the networks springing up all over the place one has to wonder if it will ever stop. I am guessing that the ones that make it will be the MySpace's and Facebook's of the net that can successfully sell ads to marketers.