I’ve had a number of interesting conversations this week with a variety of people about their take on the future of social networks. My discussions all devolved to one central question: will there be massive consolidation in this area down to the “Big Two” (and which two will that be) or will a thousand flowers bloom – essentially lots of small niche sites (fueled by apps like Ning, etc.) that will have live on their own with small, but highly engaged communities.

Here’s my non-scientific reporting.

I hear a couple of constant refrains. First, time constrained folks simply won’t create and maintain zillions of profiles on zillions of sites, especially in light of three major developments. One, and probably critical, is that Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn now have critical mass – your friends, and their friends and their friends are already there, creating a huge pool of people (like 300 million – or roughly the population of the entire US) to meet and be friends with. Second, given that, and the ease with which these sites facilitate the creation of subgroups and event pages that can be shared with those friends, it is easier and easier to create and maintain niche interest groups within a community where everyone has already congregated. And, third, applications that emerging entrepreneurs have devised that both create and export niche engagement around a brand or a cause within social networks eliminating the need to create new profiles but allow niche communities to flourish on existing social networks. So, based on this assessment, I heard several who are dubious that Ning or any other site that has staked its livelihood on creating new social networks outside of the existing ones will survive long term.

As for the question about who survives, there is some interesting debate. Most everyone believes that Facebook will survive as one of the Big Two … in spite of the fact that they have not yet figured out a business model that makes money for them. What’s fascinating is how divided folks are on whether its opposite number ends up being MySpace or LinkedIn. Those in favor of MySpace cite its now powerful focus around music and its revenue model around MySpace Music and other initiatives that ring the cash register. Those against, say that it is too focused on music, too cluttered with ads and not conducive to the “social interaction” that Facebook and LinkedIn foster. Those in favor of LinkedIn say that most people divide their lives in two parts – the social and the professional – and that LinkedIn provides that professional outlet for all of those Facebookers who don’t want their job searching to be all that transparent to their network (‘cuz we all know that the beauty of LinkedIn is that you get to job hunt and “network” passively just by being there.) Those against LinkedIn say that young people in particular, don’t have LinkedIn profiles and manage their lives on Facebook anyway, so the personal and professional are simply managed on that one network.

The one point that everyone agrees upon though is that “social” is to business today what the internet was to business in the 1990’s. It’s not a passing fad or a trend. It is for some already, and will be for others, an integral part of how companies and their customers interact. Companies must move past the “when and how not if” debate, and focus on how to use social as a powerful and effective extension of business strategy.

There’s another insight that came out of these discussions. It’s possible that Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn (or 2 of those 3) essentially become big social portals, the aggregators, if you will, of relationships that people want to create and maintain on the web. Applications like Facebook Connect that allow you to basically travel the web with your own social network, could be one of the ways that niche sites outside of these social portals flourish while keeping the larger network updated on these interactions. The irony may be that niche sites survive and prosper because of Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn enable it. The question for the Big Three or Big Two, is how/if they monetize the asset that others will undoubtedly benefit from.