There’s a great article by Cory Doctorow (of BoingBoing fame) in Informationweek, talking about how annoying/creepy co-workers (and the like) are the reason why social networking sites are so volatile.

That’s the problem with Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. — there are lots of people, and reasons, you don’t want to be connected into a social network. I notice — with some exceptions — that here in Southern California very, very few venture capitalists, investment bankers, or other “power players” are connected into any social networks. Not to mention if you’re a celebrity (aside from the “official” fan profiles on MySpace). Why? Simply, you don’t want people knowing what you are doing at every moment of the day; you don’t want everyone and their next door neighbor pitching you for deals; you don’t want people taking cycles out of your already overloaded schedule.

Everyone knows who I am talking about: we’re not talking about college buddies and good friends, we’re talking about the sort of scary guy who keeps coming up to you at industry events trying to get any venture investor to buy into his scheme to use ESP to contact aliens; the would-be entrepreneur who (violently) won’t take “no” for an answer; that wierdo you met back in college and thought you’d be rid of.

It might not even be a good idea for folks you do know, and perhaps even trust, to know exactly what you’re doing all the time. Do you want to let everyone know you spent last week in New York interviewing investment bankers? Or that, as a VC, advertise to the world that you are about to make an investment in a firm which you think is the “next Microsoft” — before the deal is done? Or, do you want to know prospective investors that you spent the weekend getting drunk with your college buddies?

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Social Networking by Benjamin Kuo