Two stories caught my eye recently regarding Social Networking (and Twitter specifically) – both stories appear on ArsTechnica:

Malware, oversharing lead Marines to ban social networks

"IT managers frequently voice their concerns about people's careless behavior online, but the US Marine Corps have taken it a step further by completely blocking Facebook and its ilk from its network."

This seemed inevitable, that people will want to use these tools, will want to be open and share things, and that organizations will want to encourage that behavior internally – but not externally – as well as want to assure themselves that secrets / IP / etc are preserved. Is this one of the new front-lines of the social web? Not just for military, but for businesses? Microsoft's toolsets (as well as others, to be fair) can address these concerns by allowing the construction of social networks that have oversight, control, and boundaries (inter or intra organization), IP collateral can be protected with Rights Management / DRM technologies, etc – but not every organization is prepared to build, manage, and maintain such an operation. It should prove interesting to see where this direction takes us. Microsoft's current toolset addresses many of these concerns, and it looks like SharePoint 2010 will take the approach to the next level.

• Social Computing with SharePoint
• White paper: Managing social networking with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Make social networking work: 7 tips - Microsoft Small Business Center
• Brad's TechTips - Social Networking and Security Risks (via FieldBrook.Net)

Twitter not so popular with the young people

"Twitter has seen massive growth lately, but the majority of users are a little older than one might expect. With more Twitter users over the age of 55 than under 25, do teens really "not tweet," or are adults just more susceptible Twitter buzz …"

Both of my teens have told me they don't care about twitter, they don't understand twitter, and they don't use twitter. "So, like, what is it for? …. What's the point?", is the response I've gotten from them. I'm not complaining, since it's one less area to keep track of their behavior and safety – but it does raise the question of will they be more attracted to that medium as they get a bit older? Will the medium last for the longer haul, or is it a phenomenon that will morph into something else or fade away?

Here's a few links I thought were interesting lately:

• Infinite Canvas (Microsoft Live Labs)
• SeaDragon
• Enterprise Social Computing – Microsoft Research