Biting the hand that feed: Can we monetize social media?

David Rowan, editor of the new UK Wired edition takes a shot at Second Life (the national sport at the moment) and hits all other social networks/services in the same time. The best business minds have spent over a decade figuring out a profitable business model for online media or social networks and the best option so far is still selling to an even bigger online media or social network. With the crisis shrinking everyone to size and funding drying up, this brings us in a world where we accept that online networks can only be a "cost of doing business", where we continue chasing an elusive magical business model that will turn millions of users into millions of customers or where we start charging people for services they clearly value. My hunch is on the 3rd option.