I have a list I keep of a bunch of different applications for social networks (Yes, I'm incrediably lame...). I see them as insanely powerful, and yet we're left with... MySpace. Like any other internet technology, social networks have been pioneered by smut. Slowly though, it seems people are starting to deliver on the promise of the medium.

Slashdot had a post regarding a new service called Illumio (oh god... I feel some sort of harry potter joke coming on, and I'm not sure how I'll be able to include mike propst) that turns your social network into a knowledge net. Ask a question, and it will seek out an answer through your friends group. There's not much intelligence going on in that scenario, outside of keeping track of who is able to answer what, but it should work decently.

If you're thinking something like this does not have much application or utility, replace the word 'friends' with 'co-workers' and maybe it'll become clear how this kind of approach could really benefit a distributed team or company (one of decent size, at least, bigger than Weblogs, Inc.)

From a technical point of view, there's not much exciting to see. From a "big picture" view of social network applications outside of friendster-clones though, it's kinda fun.