Increase in social networking

Am given to understand that there is a spurt in social networking - especially since the advent of industry downturn. Well, no hard facts to prove it but am witnessing an increasing number of people very active in social networking these days possibly driven by the need of the hour to seek if anyone anywhere has anything for them. Tried a few names in twitter including jobless, jobsless, no work etc to see the magnitude of networking. Not surprisingly, 'no work times' had more than 240 following, jobsless had an equal number. What intrigued me was the messages in these profiles - free healthcare for the jobless, free software, free movies etc. So, no wonder why there is increased networking - freebies are ubiquitous.
Wonder how this network will evolve? Will it result into job-sharing? Will it give rise to new social-networking based business models?