Spread in the Wall Street Journal today on the bubblicious world of social networking services, like Ryze, Friendster, at el. (NOte that the link won't work if you don't have WSJ access).

There is beau coup money streaming into the space, with firms like Friendster getting millions even while the financial equation hasn't been finally worked out. The theme seems to be "get folks signed up, and then upsell premium services." I buy the pitch, and I am looking forward to the premium services, when the social networks are put to work.

The article does not dig into digital reputation (whuffie, or swarmth, as I call it) and only touches on privacy glancingly. The hard part of getting networks to work is not really covered, here, but since this is really the money lenders convincing themselves to jump into the market, that figures.