As reported by Computerworld earlier this month, Intel Senior Vice President Arun Chandrasekhar identified social networking as the phenomena that will drive the future of mobile Internet growth.

“Social networking is the engine that will drive demand for the mobile platforms, according to Chandrasekhar. That technology has surpassed pornography as the biggest bandwidth-consuming application on the Internet, he said. Worldwide, consumers spend 3 billion minutes per day on social networking, but most of that is on PCs over fixed broadband connections. People want to be able to do it wherever they are, he said.”

I probably used up more than my fair share of those 3 billion minutes today myself, posting to and browsing Twitter, Twitxr, Flickr, Facebook and LinkedIn.

The sheer volume of this statistic offers interesting questions: How many millions of people, each with a personal Identity, participated in this phenomena today? What is the average time each person spent? To whom are they connected? What are their interests? What do they really seek? How will those needs be satisfied? How many more will participate tomorrow?

A phemomena of this magnitude presents huge economic opportunity for those involved. The question is, how? I believe the answers lie in learning how to effectively deliver personalized value to people, many of whom, like myself, like to be served, not exploited.

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