The commercialization of social networks and blogging has begun in earnest -- and I don’t mean bloggers trying to earn adsense dollars and social networks charging a fee for their members. No, what I mean is that since the socialization of the interwebs has gotten hot in terms of mainstream press, and is quite frankly, fueling the next bubble (yes, we’re in it right now), enterprising companies have gotten into the business of actively corrupting that socialization for a fee. I’ve blogged about it before, but as far as I’m concerned the blogosphere has already turned this page with ReviewMe and PayPerPost. Yes, its awfully sanctimonious, because of course bloggers are entitled to earn a living. But, I think we can all agree that any time you take money in exchange for potentially changing the tone, quality, or content of your posts is the definition of corruption; its a strong word, but if it makes you feel better, you can, in your own mind, use the word “taint”. Or maybe “advertorializing”. I suppose it was an inevitability. People need money and like money. Offer them money for something they’re already doing, and a high percentage of people will take your money, because, after all, you’re not telling them to rob a bank or anything. And to be fair, to those individuals who need to pay the bills, they’re probably flipping the bird at me right now, which, of course, is their right.But this post isn’t about how great PayPerPost (and their ilk is), but rather, how new business systems are corrupting current social “networks”, in all its forms.

If you want any proof for how popular and well accepted PayPerPost is, just sign up for Google Alerts under “payperpost”. After a while you will see that every day all of the alerts for “Payperpost” are about how great it is and how people are using it to make a little cash. The blogosphere, by and large, isn’t outraged by it, but are embracing it as another means to monetize their blog. (I wonder if I’ve just taken an elitest “liberal” stance on the issue?)

Forget about blogging for a minute. How about social networks, proper?

Or even social bookmarking?

Well, it seems like in every circumstsance where a venture has gotten popular there are commercial interests who are waiting to exploit it (and “corrupt it” — see? I am an equal opportunist when it comes to being pompous). For social bookmarking sites that use the “wisdom of crowds” to democratically push the most popular news to the top? … you have SpikeTheVote, which is currently on the block, and of questionable use. Its a system which allows individuals to submit stories that will allow them to voted on by a group of individuals, provided you also join that group. There’s at least one other system that allows you to game this system, called User/Submitter which allows you to pay for Diggs.

Of course, both of their uses are questionable simply because of the amount of attention they’ve gotten, and the fact that anyone can join in — including the faithful for social bookmarking sites, who can report on which stories are currently being “spiked”.

For social networks, we have businesses like FakeMyProfile, which was recently “profiled” on Wired’s on MonkeyBites, where for only 0.99c per month, they’ll add a profile of a hot young male or female to your profile as a “friend” and send you two messages a month. What’s quaint of course, is that all the descriptions of your new “friends” makes it sound like there are actual models behind those pictures. And of course, the young ladies appearing in late night commercials are the very same ones staffing the sparkling conversation behind those 1-900 televsion ads late at night. And of course they’re ladies.

And let’s not forget the great astroturfing flogs that Edelman was behind earlier this year on behalf of Wal-Mart.

Clearly money is the motivating factor behind all of these systems and businesses, that exist, to greater or lesser degrees of success, in manipulating and corrupting existing social “networks” in the widest sense of the word.

What I hope, is that as the socialization of the Internet gets mainstream press, there will be enough journalistic know-how to pick up on these nuances (that really aren’t that subtle), to warn people to take it all with a grain of salt. Sure, there are stalkers, pedophiles, and murderers on MySpace. That all gets air time.

But for the innocent surfer, they might not know that the people you’re interacting with on MySpace might be fake. Or their friends might be fake. Or that the post you just read on your favourite blog was only up because it was paid for by a company. Or that story that you were just forwarded, only got a certain amount of notice because someone knew how to work a voting system. Or trying to purchase a mortgage or insurance online will only send you in endless splog-orrific circles without learning anything.

Yes, I think most individuals who are savvy enough to push the “on” button on their computer is particularly cautious about phishing scams and meeting perverts online, but with the corruption of the socialization of the Internet, I suspect a more nuanced, and careful tone needs to be adopted in terms of New Media literacy. Users of social media, and as it grows more prevalent, really, anyone who uses the Internet, needs to ask some fairly important questions on a fairly routine basis.

• Who am I really interacting with?
• Who is really behind this story?
• Who benefits from the promotion of this story?
• And above all — who has really earned my trust?