The Internet is killing yet another traditional media outlet—alumni magazines—according to a recent NY Times article. Social networking technology was just about made for doing what these university publications have been doing for decades—keeping alumni connected and engaged so they will hopefully donate money someday. What’s happening with alumni magazines is also a great example of the real power of this new technology.

Those who aren’t that familiar with social networking think it is mainly about putting half naked pictures of your drunken self for all to see. In fact, of course, social networking is a powerful technology for helping people communicate with each other. It will be used for all sorts of very serious purposes in the future not to mention advertising.

I don’t think there’s much doubt that social networking, as a technology, has a lot of legs. One shouldn’t confuse importance with profitable though: the browser was revolutionary but no one has made money from it directly. Social networking will be different but whether it will become an advertising powerhouse remains to be seen.