Blogger Seni Thomas shares some profundity at Conversation Agent about the nature of social networks in the forthcoming year.

The primary purpose of online networks, up to this point, has been to congregate around interests, hobbies, and passions to create communities. In 2008 I predict networks will become more tha[n] social. In 2008 we will see the growth of innovation networks, or i-Nets. Networks that allow ideas to attract people and people to discover ideas.

i-Nets, in a nutshell, are networks that layer advanced people search capabilities, democratic content voting, and collaborative applications over a social foundation. Think of a mash-up between Google Apps, Spock, Digg, and Facebook.

i-Nets, according to Seni, will be catalysts for strategy consolidation, allowing research, planning, design, and creative functions to work with unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness. It’s the kind of prediction made at the onset of every new business year — but the explosion of social networking interconnectivity and communications suggests that this generation just might be able to follow through on the promise.