“The social networking run is over, kaput, done, finished” Is it?

Larry Dignan of ZDNet pronounced today that the social Web is over, and we might as well all go home and find something else to do.

IBM launching social networking software (just for those corporate types that just can’t wait to produce MySpace-ish pages) is the same as the cabby and the real estate flipper down the street. Translation: The social networking run is over. Goodbye. It’s kaput.

Is it the end of the world as we know it? Most likely not. It is just the natural progression of trends and fringe concepts coming to the mainstream. The Web is more than software and applications, it is people and people are not going to stop communicating. True, dinosaurs like IBM will try to set “standards” and “rules of the Web”, but they will not be able to have the control that they had in the past. The social Web is too unruly and big for one or even several companies to take over. Google has tried, as has Yahoo!, but no luck… yet.