I don’t know what the answer to most of that is, but for the social network part, it seems to me that the answer is FOAF.

That is to say, I hate joining new social network sites and re-entering the same information. I’d rather enter it once, and then have the place I entered it export it as FOAF for other places to read. Then, when I join other sites, instead of trying to recreate individual profiles and social network graphs from scratch, they just import it from somewhere else.

That way the user doesn’t have to re-enter the same information when they join a new site.

I think it is not just about being up to date. Writing about technology will always be difficult to keep fresh for print. However that’s not where the real value is. I follow the search industry very closely and have come form a business background, and while the technology is great it is the story of how search changed the world, business, financial, social, entertainment (I believe it has done all of this and will continue to do so, and I don’t even own any G or Y! stock).

From the snippets I have read, I see this book as telling the story of an immerging industry with rapidly changing business models. An industry where small companies left giants like Microsoft and IBM in the dust. I could see this being a text book for MBA students; an introduction to the internet economy. A study on companies and industries that change the way all other business do business and the way consumers interact with information (especially marketing). I think people will realize if you want to understand the internet you need to understand search.

Guess I am smoking it too…. I will get off my soapbox now…

I don’t see anyone except bloggers, researchers, and writers taking the effort to use this.

Oh yeah, and spammers.