Alan Mecker thinks so:

“Based on my observations of Internet history (for me going back to 1990), once you start to become numb from an Internet concept, it probably means that the concept is about to die. I could be wrong, but don’t bet the ranch on social networking concepts. Most do not make money today and never will make money“.

I think he’s right, although I guess some of the bigger networks, like MySpace, may prove to be an exception. Personally, I can’t think of one social networking application that I haven’t found a) tedious and b) useless. The buzz has certainly faded lately, except in Web 2.0 circles where that still think these things are “pretty neat” – but then having a business case was never much of a concern to that crowd.

Whatever happened to Orkut, BTW? It is wildly popular in Brazil, but nowhere else, for reasons that aren’t immediately obvious.