First the nonsense. I love it when a pedantic old rag tries to keep up with the times. As a public service, the Economist would like to warn us that just because social networks are everywhere "does not mean it is a business."

But in trying to disparage the business model, it shows just how late it is to the game and how little it understands.

"The problem with today's social networks is that they are often closed to the outside web. The big networks have decided to be "open" toward independent programmers, to encourage them to write fun new software for them. But they are reluctant to become equally open towards their users, because the networks' lofty valuations depend on maximising their page views--so they maintain a tight grip on their users' information, to ensure that they keep coming back."

Now granted that it can be excused for going "to print" (yes, I'm tweaking its editors for a print-centric approach) before today's news, where Microsoft declared itself the Switzerland of the social networks and OpenSocial opened its arms to Yahoo.

But OpenSocial was launched in November 2007, and can hardly be ignored given that it was born under the aegis of Google.

As Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb wrote last week, not only are social networks thriving, but they're overtaking blogs as the locus of online conversation.

Events seem to be scurrying to prove her point. TechCrunch reports on a Twitter-clone, and Imeem, a social networking site, launched a developer platform that can, among other things, hook up to OpenSocial.

The Economist warns that "Social networking may end up being everywhere, and yet nowhere," but its readers should be mindful of the source.