In terms of the power of social networking online, few have mastered it to the extent of the Barack Obama campaign. They are setting the new gold standard on how to reach out via multiple social networking sites and tools.
For an in-depth analysis of the social networking success of the Obama campaign, read this excellent article at TheAtlantic.com.
Charles Cooper at CNET has a great post about Twitter, their recent services glitches and comparisons to the heyday of AOL, when it was all the rage.
Twitter is definitely taking off like a rocket ship lately, and the real question is where the ship is headed and how sustainable it is, after the novelty of Tweet’ing your friends from the mall wears off. Is it a viable business tool, assuming they can work out the delivery kinks? Most importantly, how will they make money (charging for enhanced services? mining and selling data?)?