At the Warrillow conference – which focuses on small business – I saw how a variety of companies are making attempts to enter social media.

Take CDW, which is a mega information technology (IT) distributor. About a year ago, the company launched Conduit. Basically, it is a social networking site focused on small business IT pros.

According to Lauren McCadney – who heads up the effort – the site has grown organically, as members have connected with each other to solve problems. This is important since small companies usually have one or two IT pros in their organization. So yes, things can get isolated and loney.

But there were risks. After all, user-generated content can be tricky. What if members make bad comments about CDW?

"Members have good manners on the site," said McCadney. "It hasn't been a problem." In fact, there is a separate section, called CDW Talk, where members can vent.

Conduit has also found ways to monetize things, such as through sponsorships. For example, there is a makeover contest; that is, a small business can win up to $50,000 in services and support from Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.

While I won't claim the title of Most Hip Person on the planet, I do have a fair bit of "new media" credibility. And I think it should be instructive that I've finally embraced (or at least given a friendly pat on the back to) Facebook, whereas News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace continues to horrify. Where Facebook pokes, MySpace cackles wickedly; where Facebook exposes me to unwelcome questions from first grade classmates, MySpace exposes your children to unwelcome advances from questionable adults. Facebook is silly; MySpace is spooky.

The two social networking sites sprung up at about the same time, but focused on vastly different niches. Facebook was originally meant to monopolize electronically on the popularity of the "Freshman Facebook," a publication put together by most colleges displaying the faces of the new students and immediately hoarded by upperclassman hoping to find their one true love (at least for tonight). Why not bring the desirability of fresh faces to a much wider audience? At first the network was limited to college students, but soon the barely legal founder was pitching his product at a bigger market. And then my boss asked me to join and the rest is writing on my wall.

MySpace, on the other hand, was initially marketed to indie bands (although it wasn't meant to be a niche, its developers were active in the LA music scene and thought that would be a great way to attract other users) as a way to spread the musical love and relieve struggling artists of the need to sink money into building a website. The concept was a virtuous circle -- musicians attract fans, fans attract musicians, and so on forever.

Now musicians are still on MySpace, and college students are still on Facebook, but while Facebook seems to have (if not transcended at least) risen above its origins to attract "networks" and "groups" whose affinity ranges from a common employer to a favorite politician or social cause; MySpace has sputtered, devolving ever more into awful allegations and truths. Pedophiles are reported to find victims through their MySpace pages, and the site is notorious for cyberbullying (scary!). On the other hand, there is a big kerfuffle over Scrabble on Facebook (silly!).

I reluctantly set up an account on FaceBook several months ago, and now it's moderately interesting as a way to reconnect with friends from 1st grade, and occasionally peek in on the lives of my college and business school classmates. It occasionally bugs me with its "pokes" and "candy corn" (what the heck?) but it's not riddled with often obscene and sometimes frightening content, as is MySpace; the space that's not mine, at all.

Vote in our poll for MySpace or Facebook as your preferred brand, and let us know in the comments why you love it.

Investors don't seem to be losing their appetite for social networks -- at least for the top ones. The latest funding comes from Ning, which recently raised $60 million. Apparently, the valuation is a pre-money $500 million or so.

The company has lots of pedigree. That is, the co-founders include Marc Andreessen -- who is the mastermind of Netscape -- and Gina Bianchini, who is a former Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) investment banker. They launched Ning back in October 2004. And it was good timing.

Basically, Ning allows users to easily create their own social networks, with blogs, videos, photos and so on. It has become a melting pot of creativity.

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) continues to dial up its efforts in the Chinese market. Having increased its position against the country's leading search engine, Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), it is now looking to rapidly expand its presence in China's social networking community. Although Google's efforts in social networking really have not paid off in the U.S., that's not the story in China.

Part reality and part competitive trap (perhaps), Google is making the world think that social networking is ripe for expansion in China. At the same time, China's government wants to ensure all these communications are kept under control (it's a communist country, right?), which would make one think this: how on earth can any company bring social networking to a market ruled by an iron fist when it comes to communications?

Kai Fu-Lee, the former Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) employee who defected to Google recently under intense scrutiny, indicates that the typical Chinese internet user is 25 years old -- making the market perfect for increasing market awareness and share of social networking efforts. But Baidu may be used more often by kids looking for pirated audio and video content more than anything else -- not for "talking and socializing with friends" as social networking is typically described. Is Google really wanting a piece of that, or is it trying to torpedo competitors? Hey, the world's largest internet search company did not arrive where it is today by being stupid.

It's always interesting to see what online audience and traffic measurements have to say about overal web use; traffic, number of users, website loyalty, etc. Now that Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) AOL is acquiring the UK-based social networking site Bebo.com for some $850 million, the site measurement companies are showing their own data. Notice that every one generates a different result.

When you look below, you'll see that all web measurement tools and methods generate different results.

It was just an average Wednesday night for me-researching potential stock plays, working on some blog posts and catching up on many overdue emails, all to further my goal of becoming Cramer 2.0-when I saw a post on EliteTrader.com that linked to The Smoking Gun exposing Governor Spitzer's call girl "Kristen" as 22-year-old Ashley Alexandra Dupre. Apparently, Kristen was/is her professional name. Always one to jump when opportunity knocks, I raced to dig up everything I could on Ms. Dupre to post on my blog and break some news of my own. What happened next might or might not blow your mind.

Several websites had already linked to her MySpace profile (owned by News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) so I went there and grabbed her photos to add to my story. The other sites had used the photos, too, but the pictures were all tiny and spread out over multiple pages (no doubt to increase their hits and subsequently their Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) ads, so I saw opportunity in providing them all on one page just as they were. But I didn't stop there.

I also searched other social networks like Facebook and bingo, she had a profile there! That would be "my exclusive." A few more clicks and the post was published. Within minutes, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has indexed my article and while I was late to the party, my "Facebook Exclusive" made my story unique and the hits tumbled in. I'm used to 200-ish visitors/hour, but thanks to this one simple post, 1,500 people visited my site within the first 45 minutes. And that's when things got interesting.

Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) doesn't look like it is slowing down on the deal front for AOL. Just when everyone is wondering if AOL will be sold, AOL has announced that it is paying out $850 million to acquire the social networking site Bebo, "a global social media network which combines community, self-expression and entertainment to enable its users to consume, create, discover and share content."

Bebo is also one of the leading social networks in the U.K. and is supposed to ranked number three in the U.S. Its users view an average of 78 pages per day.

Bebo has a total membership of more than 40 million worldwide. The press release notes that together with the AIM and ICQ network, AOL will have 80 million unique users in the world of social media.

For $850 million in cash as the purchase price, AOL probably just added a serious site that it can convert rapidly into advertising profits with Platform-A (Advertising.com and more). Its giant ad platform that still ranks number one on many ad metrics.

So while $850 sounds like a lot, it may well prove to be a bargain ultimately for AOL.

With revenues of $16.5 billion and a cash hoard of $14 billion, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is certainly no longer a scrappy startup. In fact, Wall Street is getting somewhat concerned about the company's prospects, as seen with the recent decline in the once mighty stock price.

So it's no surprise that some of Google vets are leaving for other opportunities.

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription), the latest to make a move is Sheryl Sandberg, who was the vice president for global online sales and operations (actually, her bio is still on the Google site).

Her next stop: the popular social networking site, Facebook.

So what if Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is getting rude? That's the attitude at Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), which is continuing to plug forward on its business.

For example, this week the company unveiled plans for a new product: oneConnect. Basically, it's part of Yahoo!'s mobile platform and has capabilities like instant messaging as well as a "socially connected" address books.

Huh? Well, users can use GPS technologies to alert you when a friends are nearby (or, I'm assuming you can set alerts for people you want to avoid, which may be an even better feature).

Yahoo also realizes that there's an opportunity to use oneConnect to help organize the clutter in the social networking space. To this end, the platform integrates with Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, MySpace and so on. And, of course, Yahoo! is working on a version for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iPhone.

It seems every day I get a pitch for a new-fangled social networking site. For example, I saw one that is for people who like food. Oh, and there was one for people who are over 70 (I'm not kidding).

Hey, with the huge success of MySpace and Facebook, I can see why entrepreneurs are jumping on the bandwagon. But are things getting out of control? And more importantly, is there really much money to crank out of social networks?

From what I can tell, it looks like the space has been a bust. For example, on the recent quarterly conference call for Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), there were some comments that indicated the disappointment with the monetization of social networks.

The Wall Street Journal [subscription required] has a piece on this today. What are the issues?

I'm a big fan of LinkedIn, which is a social network for professionals. In fact, the service has helped me get sources for some of my stories.

But competition is starting to emerge, the latest comes from Hoover's, a part of Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE: DNB). Hoover's has acquired Visible Path, which develops an enetrprise-class social networking platform.

So what makes Hoover's Connect different? Essentially, it's a LinkedIn for individual companies and the system integrates with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)'s Outlook and other products.

Perhaps the biggest key, however, is privacy. After all, if you are a major executive (who has the power of the checkbook), do you want your contact information freely available?

Hoover's can also leverage its large base of business customers. For example, it is possible to use the system to develop referral paths for various companies, making it to make it easier to make a connection. Actually, according to a study from the University of Chicago and University of North Carolina business schools, it is 16 times more likely to get a response from a trusted source versus a cold call.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

American Greetings (NYSE: AM) knows how to deal with changing times. After all, the company got its start in 1906.

In fact, the company was an early adopter of dot-com technologies (going back about 13 years), and has purchased a variety of digital companies, such as BlueMountain.com.

And yes, American Greetings is also making moves on the social networking front through its popular Kiwee.com destination. In its first six months out of beta, the site has attracted more than 1 million members. A key has been its IM Toolbar, which allows for cool digital icons and expressions for messaging platforms like Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX)'s AOL.

However, Kiwee is not a social networking site. "There are already strong players in social networking, such as MySpace and Facebook," said Rajiv Jain, the SVP and general manager of Kiwee, in an interview with me Wednesday. "Instead, we focus on our core strength, which is creating great content."

No doubt, the content is pretty cool. Most importantly, there are a variety of tools to allow for customization, letting users easily create unique online personalities.

So far, it seems the formula is getting traction -- and shows that old companies can still find ways to innovate.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on 60 Minutes on Sunday with a message that may be disappointing for investors looking for a piece of the red hot social networking site: An IPO this year is "highly unlikely".

Zuckerberg, who is worth a reported $3 billion, says he lives in a one-bedroom apartment with a mattress on the floor, and is CEO of a company with 400 employees.

Last year, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) bought 1.6% of the company for $240 million, but doesn't seem ready to take the next step anytime soon:

"I think what I can announce is that it is highly unlikely that we will go public in 2008. And when going public makes sense to do, we'll do that. And maybe that's two years out. Maybe it's three years out."

In spite of Facebook's huge popularity, there is concern that Zuckerberg and company have not yet found a way to monetize it successfully and turn it into a wildly profitable venture. It may be that Facebook plans to wait to go public until it finds a way to do that and score a higher valuation.

But long-term, I see the company's decision not to rush into an IPO as bullish. If Zuckerberg wants to cash out, he could do it right now and and get a nice bed for his mattress. His decision to keep the company private demonstrates a long-term commitment and optimism that the company will be as highly regarded 2 or 3 years down the road as it is now.

When it comes to M&A, few have as much expertise as Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO). But recently, the serial acquirer has been buying up some odd companies – small social networking firms, such as Five Across and Tribe.

Now we are seeing some of the results of these deals: Cisco is launching a new software platform called Eos, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Basically, Eos is an entertainment operating system that will help companies build social networks. Cisco plans to deliver Eos via the Net, not installed software. The business model will entail a subscription fee.

To get some background on this, I had a chance to interview Erick Brownstein, an expert on social networking and operates the Social Media Method blog:

"Cisco's trend antennae have been up, and they are wisely betting on the future of social media. They are combining all of the 'right' ingredients with their content-agnostic, white-label Eos platform. It's not just video and entertainment, but special interest and lifestyle. The data mined will guide not only behavioral advertising, but Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN)-style recommendations as well. It'll be interesting to see what other elements they bring into the mix. There's clearly plenty of room out there for a company like Cisco to hold the hands of traditional media companies -- and mid- to large-sized companies across many industries -- that are trying to navigate through the social media landscape."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

If I had $61 million in cash, I think I could do much better with it than Monster Worldwide (NASDAQ: MNST). That's how much the company shelled out for Affinity Labs, which got its start last year.

In fact, the company says it is in the "development stage" and has about one million registered users. So yes, I guess Monster is expecting a monstrous number of job listings to come from this deal (at least I hope so).

OK, what is Affinity all about? Basically, it's a network of sites that cater to certain professions and vocations, such as PoliceLink, FireLink, GovCentral, and so on.

True, these sites have social networking features, such as profiles, photo sharing, and videos. Yet, the technology seems fairly generic.

But keep in mind that the founder of Affinity, Christopher Michel, sold Military.com to Monster.com back in 2004. That site is a thriving community with more than 10 million members.

So perhaps Monster is trying to snag Michel to get his social networking credentials. But, it sure does look like a hefty price tag.

In yesterday's trading, Monster.com's stock was down 4% to $27.73.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.