Why?

Buzz—why should you be interested?

Social networks and online communities are very much in the popular consciousness these days. Second Life, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg.com, Yahoo! groups—everywhere you look on the Net, there are new “communities” or social spaces popping up, clamoring for your attention. Forrester Research reported that four out of five online adults visited a social media site at least once a month in 2009 [1]. Second Life, a popular three-dimensional social network, reported that it had over 14 million registered users in June 2008, users who completed $19 million in “Linden dollar” transactions during the month of May 2008. By April of 2009, Second Life's total transactions had grown to $27 million ...

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