For a long time I’ve resisted the tempation to create a profile in Facebook – one can’t be everywhere, no? (Andrey Golub being the exception!)

Certainly there aren’t a lack of places online to find business partners.

However, I recently received an e-mail from an American woman I met at a meet-up of SEO (search engine optimization) Professionals in Manchester, England. In essence, she refused my invitation for LinkedIn, saying that she is already in Facebook, and for now, that’s enough.

Adding to this, Microsoft is buying a piece of Facebook for a significant amount of money; maybe its time to answer the messages in my Inbox with the subject “I’ve added you as a friend on Facebook”.

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Fresh back from this weekend’s RomagnaCamp, I’m taking a brief break from a “posting hiatus” to report on the event.

After a quick touristic visit to Ravenna on Friday, I caught the bus for Marina Romea. This turned out to be auspicious as I was able to met Giuseppe Lamuraglia of e-net, a company which distributes small solar energy power supplies. Italy has a strong history of renewable energy generation; it was the first to generate electricity from geothermal energy in 1904.

Friday afternoon was dedicated to informal discussions (including wind power with Marco Fabbri) just meters from the beach - a nice transition from the summer holidays. The weather was appropriately windy; despite the sun, most of us were under-dressed.

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In just a few years, businesses oriented social networking websites have taken off. The industry leader, LinkedIn, counts more than 10 million members despite only being available in English.

To take advantage of a professional social networking web service, a user completes a professional profile and invites professional contacts to connect to the profile. Most sites, with differing degrees of success, offer the possibility to upload contacts from an email system and/or a file of contacts.

Who should insert a profile?

Professionals seeking career opportunities, consulting offers and business deals have everything to gain from the visibility a profile in a business oriented social networking site offers. Most services offer a basic profile and set of features free of charge. The real cost is the time it takes to fill out and maintain a profile.

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