What Ever Happened to Social Networking?

It seems it was only six months ago that everyone I knew was signing up for LinkedIn, Orkut, and every other Social Networking service. Every day I got a slew of invitations to be someone's friend, many from people I never heard of, until I had 297 connections on LinkedIn and 96 on Orkut. That's nowhere close to Marc Canter, but enough to be able to see the potential. It was fun to renew old contacts and see who else my friends knew, but the real question was what else would this be useful for.

I get the occasional request to introduce someone I've never heard of to a famous person I barely know, but for me the prime utility has been to maintain my address book in an era where people would sooner have sex with someone that tell them their email address. (Remember when you would go to an industry event and come home with a list of people and their emails? No more in the Age of Spam.)

What about you? Are you still getting lots of "be my friend" requests or have all your friends signed up or given up. Is the pig still moving through the python? Have you made a valuable business contact, landed a job, or got a date through Social Networking? Please let me know.