Convergence Culture: Clubs are enjoying a resurgence online, but in the form of social networks, writes Haydn Shaughnessy.

Social networks are the new way of the Web. But, you might say, what are social networks? The term seems familiar. We've always done social networking. Clubs, mixing, and friendships are all social networks. For the past 20 years though, advocates of online networking have argued that, if only for environmental reasons, we ought to meet less and virtually network more. Now it's happening. It may change how you see television and read newspapers.

In the past two years online social networking has become the number-one web phenomenon integral to entirely new developments, such as user-generated content.

If you are a parent, however, the chances are your children use either a website called Bebo or one called MySpace. These are websites that young people use to socialise without ever necessarily meeting. They make it easier for people to set up web pages, create profiles and find people with similar interests.

Not only are they popular with adolescents, businesses are now forming social networks for internal communications and customer relationships, as well as using Bebo and MySpace to attract young customers. Online sales-support firm Salesforce.com, Innersell, GoBigNetwork, and AlwaysOn are four examples of businesses trying to cash in on the expected stampede of big and small business to use social networks for recruiting, sales, gossip and talking to customers.

The jargon of social networks is getting the business-speak treatment alongside Customer Relationship Management, emotional intelligence and the other phrases that populate business-book titles. You can already hear the near future: The Seven Effective Habits of the Bebo Generation; Network to Survive: How Networks Are Changing Businessand Solving the Pensions' Crisis; The Competitive Advantage of Social Networks.

But the trend in business reflects a wider one. People are now forming clubs (surely another way of saying social network) for the most arcane and niche activities, including the annual attempt by fans of the late, great Scottish racing driver Jim Clark to set a new world record by driving 1,000 pre-1977 cars simultaneously around the Hockenheimring in Germany. The web is helping revive "clubability". Soccer fans in particular now find they have a way to speak beyond their club-base to officials in the international game, so clubability has a powerful impact for consumers of entertainment, allowing them to sit at the same virtual table as sports administrators.

Chess is now promoted through 300 online chess clubs with the grand master of sites being chessclub.com, which maintains a record of competitions around the world, broadcasts a chess radio service in three languages and hosts "simul" (simultaneous exhibition) games between chess masters and a variety of opponents.

The Bebo generation, though, is where the wider impact of social networks will be felt. Bebo and MySpace allow members to set up their own mini-websites using some of their own text and photographs and, usually, a lot of other people's content. What the kids produce is almost like a badge, or haircut, that says look at me. Check out my interests and my sense of humour, and if we feel like it, we can flirt. These adolescent sites have quickly changed their character. For example, users have adapted social networks for uses. It is common enough for teenagers to blog on their MySpace or Bebo pages. They are developing their authorial voices and experiencing what it is like to write, be listened to and suffer criticism (along with some praise).

Social networks have been co-opted by the global marketing machine. The music industry has moved in, bands have set up Bebo and MySpace pages and large tracts of cyberspace have become fan clubs. The impact, though, will be felt in conventional media, in places such as RTÉ, the BBC and even newspapers.

Andreas Neus, author of a report, Navigating the Media Divide(March 2007), for the global consulting firm IBM, told me recently that its research suggests the Bebo generation would be perfectly happy for their television screens to be filled with the same low-quality content as their Bebo pages. In all, Neus estimates that younger audiences would accept up to 25 per cent of their TV content originating in Bebo-type content.

"Low quality" is of course a value judgment. While people of my generation think of content in terms of a visual grammar inspired by Hollywood and European movies, the Bebo generation think in terms of connectivity. Connecting with other people of the same age group and interests is their entertainment.

The idea of connectivity as entertainment is what the business world would like to extract from current social-network behaviour. Their dream is to be part of their customers' routine connectivity, a goal that would reduce their dependence on advertising as a way of delivering their messages.

Whatever business makes of social networking, its impact on existing media is only an entrepreneurial act away. The first person to set up a TV station devoted to social networking is on a low-cost winner and will alter advertising in a way that newspapers will rue.

WORDS IN YOUR EAR

Social networks- websites that promote online meetings and communication between people.

Simul games- simultaneous games between one player and many opponents.