Are social networking sites like golf?

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Yep, I'm blogging from the land where you hope the next ringing slot machine is yours and where drive-through service takes on a whole new meaning for newly-weds.

Ah yes, that's Viva Las Vegas for ya! Some trivia about the city of neon...did you know some 300 couples get hitched in Las Vegas every day, and it would take 288 years for one person to spend a night in each and every hotel room here?

And this one, I like particularly, did you know that it is technically still "legal" to hang someone for shooting your dog on your property?

I'm in Vegas this week covering an event that gathers Web developers from around the world. In one of the track sessions I attended yesterday, the panel discussion centered on what the next wave of the Internet would be.

The panelists, mostly Web developers and designers, agreed that it's still too premature to speculate when the industry has yet to fully grasp and benefit from Web 2.0.

The dialog drifted into a debate on how some organizations today get so caught with the hype, and want to deploy every Web 2.0 buzzword they come across, that they forget to ask themselves the one key question: Why?

Why do it? What business value will it offer? Does your organization really need it?

One panelist relates how some of his customers are so eager to introduce blogs and social networking facilities in their organization that they neglect to consider the consequences of doing so.

"One challenge for businesses to implement Web 2.0 tools is to get over this notion that it's easy," he says. Getting their employees to post a blog is easy, but companies forget that they'll also then have to get someone to moderate every blog and manage the infrastructure.

It's a bit like golf, isn't it? I remember how businesses here used to spend thousands of dollars sending their sales teams for golf lessons and signing them up for club memberships. Companies were willing to do all that so their sales staff will be able to network with clients over a game of golf and seal multimillion-dollar contract agreements.

I never quite understood the fuss and wondered why throw all that money away when business deals can just be easily inked over a nice meal or drinks. Then again, I was never really into golf.

Just like they do now with blogs and Facebook, some organizations won't hesitate to jump on every chance they can to cozy up to clients in hopes of signing that mega deal.

But, blogs and Facebook aren't quite like golf. Web 2.0 tools require more resources to manage and there are other issues to worry about also, such as security risks.

I'm not saying that companies should avoid Web 2.0 like the plague. What I am saying is that they need to put more thought into it before they decide to adopt some of these tools, and recognize that it's not simply about buying a bag of clubs and some golf balls.

Businesses must realize that if they want to deploy Web 2.0 technology, they must then be prepared to spend the necessary resources to properly manage the infrastructure.

And at the end of the day, the Web should be about simplicity and providing real value, and not merely an opportunity to "hang out" with your clientele on Facebook.

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Eileen Yu

Eileen Yu began covering the IT industry when Asynchronous Transfer Mode was still hip and e-commerce was the new buzzword. These days, she gets stirred up over issues concerning Internet regulation, intellectual property rights and software patents, online privacy and data protection. Eileen is senior editor at ZDNet Asia, where she oversees the business tech news site.