There are several web sites out there that claim to help you stay in touch with your social network. LinkedIn is one such site, useful for sending "pings" to former co-workers... I've dabbled with this one a bit. There's other sites that I haven't tried, like Orkut, Friendster, and MySpace. Each of these seem to focus on the personal/friendship/dating side of your social network. But is there a site that can help manage your social network from a business slant?

For instance, Tim Bray notes writes about "Real Social Networks" that lists how his family's social and business contacts are intermixed. I'm guessing the more you deal with local small businesses (as opposed to large corporations), the more this mixing will happen. Tim ends his post with the question, "Why do we need computers to help us with this?"

My first off-the-top-of-my-head answer would be, "Computers make remembering and sharing our network much easier." The last time I paid someone to do some major work on our house was about five years ago. Just now I remember the guy's name was "Dennis" and that he did a fine job reproducing 10 inch baseboards in maple, but I had to go digging through my address book to find his last name and company name. And guess what else I came across there? I had added a note to the contact information that mentioned Dennis had been recommended by a plumber I had work on our tub that was leaking into a wall.

Now, maybe my memory is less retentive than your average geek's noggin, but I need a computer to help me remember my business network, and I'd appreciate a way to make it easier to share my recommendations. Is anyone thinking what I'm thinking? Microformats? Web services?

Update 2006/07/08: And now Robert Scoble is opting out of the on-line social networking scene. He writes:

Why do I need a social network? I hate LinkedIn, for instance. I get emails sent to me through five people. If you don’t know how to look me up on Google/MSN/Yahoo and email me directly why, exactly, would I answer your emails there?