Having been idle for the last two weeks, today I found that Jon Lebkowsky, one of the co-founding members of the Social Software Alliance (SSA) is writing two interesting pieces in his blog about social networks

Aesthetics of Social Networks elaborates on the idea that technology must be used to leverage the benefits of the social dimension (social networks) - not as a consequence of its mere existence - but from the design & build stage yet. His ideas for now (though still in early forming and rudimentary stage) are the usage of:

• visual aspects (network maps) and
• the concept of a social aesthetic (harmonious group-forming).

In another post from the 17th of December, Jon mentiones that Mitch Ratcliffe notes that social network sites aren't as effective when relationships are overstated.

At the same time, what is interesting about the social networking technology is that it forces requests into a semi-public venue, making us think about them more explicitly. I'm not sure that does much in terms of making successful connections today, though it certainly makes the "pain" social networking software hopes to address more explicit.