From MIT to Facebook, researchers are studying social networking data to understand the common interests of friends. By utilizing the friendship data received from sites like Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and Linkedin, businesses can better target likely customers on the Internet. With some promising studies yielding triple-click rates, online marketers are taking note. Companies like IBM are taking it one step further by using internal social networking programs to understand employee interests and pairing workers with people they like for increased productivity. This new type of data, unavailable a decade ago, is bringing marketing and business to a new level of consumer connection.

The full story at Business Week:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_22/b4133032573293.htm