A panel speaking about Second Life and the rest of the virtual Web at Stanford University's AlwaysOn Summit challenged the conventional wisdom of these communities as entertainment sites for the young, and said they would increasingly be used by an older, more business-focused demographic.

The very definition of the term "social networking," used to describe sites like Facebook and MySpace, will probably change to address the broader needs of businesses and other, more "serious" communities.

"You won't find the name social networking anywhere on our site," said Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. "I do think the name has become a stigma that can prevent [social networking] from spreading to other communities."

MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe insisted he had nothing to do with coining the term social networking, which he agreed was an outdated description for a site like MySpace, where most users are over the age of 35.

This inevitable evolution in the way social networks are used has already spawned a flurry of application development, much of it aimed at enhancing wireless access. "We already have a bunch of users in Japan who only access the site over wireless," said DeWolfe. He predicted application development would accelerate as the social networking demographic continued to mature and diversify. —Andrea Orr