Stalkr - (pronounced stalker) a person that you don’t know who tries to Facebook you or become your friend on MySpace or indeed on any social network.   The term also apples to someone you may know a bit who decides to relentlessly pursue a more active online discourse than you would like.  Would also apply to someone you are not following who frequently talks @ you on Twitter.  Essentially a  stalker in the 2.0 style of Flickr, Tumblr etc.   

According to analysts, Gartner, social networking sites are not doing it for business. Well, who am I to contradict that global behemoth but - you know what - here goes…

Strategic communications consultant, Merryn Myatt, signed up for Linkedin about a year ago and promptly forgot about it. Latterly, she started to build up her professional network using the site and then needed some input for a project, so posted a question on Linkedin. Not only was the response enormous, but the profile of the people responding very impressive.

So what, you might say? Apart from Merryn getting a host of great material for her work (i.e., content - what web 2.0 should be good for) it shows that business people are online wanting to interact, share knowledge, learn and build contacts. Isn’t that the start of a beautiful (business) relationship?

ChangeWave research used a survey earlier this year to show that companies were “hot on using Web 2.0″. But as their graph above suggests, there are more than 60% who won’t touch it with a barge pole. Maybe the avalanche of jargon and new, thrusting brands associated with social media is partly to blame. But what if we called it what it is - word of mouth? Ok, the channels for that word have changed, but the principal remains the same. Steve Rubel, as usual, puts his finger on what matters in social media and reminds us that people tend to listen to and take the lead from people they know and trust. What a concept! If I’m quick, I might just patent that.

For those still navigating their way around the evolution of Web 2.0 and what it means for social and business interaction, you couldn’t hope for a more lucid analysis than that of Clay Shirky who has just written Here Comes Everybody about what the changes in the online world mean for, well, the clue’s in the title.

Listen to him here.