Is there a difference between people who are interesting in expanding their social network through the Web, versus those that are looking for a financial gain? Or, are the two naturally linked?

So often, I run into someone who is well-known in the social media space, but they are often using their popularity to push products, sites, themselves, etc. The collaboration of these creative and intelligent minds would seem to benefit the technical society as a whole, yet there are plenty out there that are using this movement of sorts as a means for a quick buck or three.

I’ve also noticed the reverse in which unknowns reference a social media star, knowing full well that said star will mention them and post links to their content. Their hope is to produce some kind of free viral marketing campaign. This is annoyingly obvious to me, but does it bother anyone else? Is it just another example of what social media and Internet networking is all about?

Will this new wave of social media sites be short-lived as the larger, established corporate giants seek to gobble up that latest craze in order to add to their over-sized umbrella? Do the innovators that launch the latest microblogging or video sharing Web applications have a responsibility to their users? Corporate giants have the likely potential to ruin an online social experience after the Web app authors and creators are long gone and consumed with comparing the size of their bank accounts instead of the number of followers.

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