Do you remeber the hot concept of "push" circa 1996? Push was best exemplified by a company called Pointcast. Pointcast got hot over push and the founders, Chris and Greg Hassett, turned down a reported cash offer of $450 million from the Murdochs of News Corporation. When push became "shove" a few years later, the Pointcast assets were sold for about $1 million!

Social Websites such as Friendster, Tribe Networks, and LinkedIn have alot of the push sizzle. The media is excited. Colleagues ask me to join. I tried LinkedIn for a month and ultimately got bothered by too many people asking me to be "linkedin." Therefore I dropped out --- or tried to, but that is not an easy task.

Regardless of my lack of interest in being part of these networks, I continue to question how they ever make money. Time will tell.

I am not rooting against Social Computing as a money-maker, but history often repeats itself. And I cannot help wondering if Social Computing is the push of 2004.