Microsoft catches social networking religion. And most folks are wondering where Facebook will land in this mess. The larger question: Is there a business hook here somewhere?

Yup, I hear the crickets too.

Social networking remains a consumer thing. And to the blogosphere it’s an opportunity to work in a Mark Zuckerberg quip, toss in Google as a reference and navel gaze a bit about the “conversation.”

But there has to be a corporate use in here somewhere.

Tuesday’s news that Yahoo is supporting OpenSocial and Google is stepping away to assure “neutrality” and interconnect social apps is a big deal. OpenSocial can now forge ahead as a real standard. Meanwhile, Microsoft has also entered the social network standard game (boy this all sounds familiar after awhile) and launched its own initiative. The gory details are fortunately rounded up by Techmeme.

I can’t help but think that this neutral OpenSocial foundation is a good thing for the enterprise. Perhaps enterprise apps will hook into OpenSocial. Perhaps vendors–beyond Oracle and Salesforce.com–will flick to the effort. Perhaps corporations will become more social.

Until then, however, there isn’t much of a huge plan when it comes to businesses.

Last week, I spoke to Joe Kraus, Director of Product Management at Google, about the enterprise implications of OpenSocial. Even though OpenSocial will be “forever free and open” there’s a lot of work to do before this becomes even slightly interesting to the enterprise.

Among the highlights of my conversation with Kraus:

• Social networking is the new black. Most killer apps are social by nature–email, IM and photo sharing for instance. Companies have been slow to adopt these uses–beyond email of course.
• Social networking isn’t a destination site. It will branch out through the entire Web. How will corporations handle this branching out process?
• Enterprises will adopt social standards like OpenSocial to embed third party applications. The rub: “These applications will need policies around them,” says Kraus. Simply put, a lot of social applications are frivolous–throwing sheep, awarding virtual beers (what’s the point folks?) and poking people. Surely, there’s a business function here somewhere.
• How do you tighten up social applications? “Social applications are loose in consumer land,” says Kraus. “We expect them to become much tighter in enterprise land.”
• What’s the model? Consumer social applications are built around advertising. In the corporate world that model won’t fly. What exactly will corporations license?
• Whatever develops in the socialprise will begin with CRM. “Salesforce and Oracle both see the opportunity, but CRM is a social application to begin with,” says Kraus.

Spears delivers 'Mother's' highest ratings

A guest appearance by Britney Spears on Monday gave the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" its highest rating ever.
"Mother" spiked to a series high 4.5 preliminary rating among adults 18-49, even as the rest of the CBS comedy lineup fell from last week's record-setting return to original episodes.
Critics were relatively impressed. "Britney the Trainwreck showed how she can still be Britney the Performer," wrote the Associated Press. "Spears proved she can act every bit as well as she can sing," wrote the New York Daily News.
The second week of strong "Mother" ratings (10.6 million, 4.5/12) assures the one-time bubble comedy will be renewed for the fall. "Mother" was the fourth-highest-rated show of the evening, and CBS won the night (averaging 12.5 million, 4.4/11).
At 10 p.m., "CSI: Miami" was the first major broadcast network drama to return with post-strike original episodes. "Miami" easily won the 10 p.m. hour and outperformed its previous season average by 7% (15.8 million, 4.8/12).

Internet-linked suicides fear in Welsh town: police

LONDON: Police are investigating a string of suicides in a Welsh town possibly linked by an Internet death cult spread via an online social network, reports and officials said Wednesday.
The latest death occurred last Thursday, when 17-year-old Natasha Randall was found hanged in her bedroom in Bridgend, south Wales, and followed the suicides of six young men in the local area over the last year.
Detectives are in particular probing links via an online social networking site, reports said.
"What worries me is that when you start entering a virtual world, as these young people are doing on this site, you lose the reality of loss," Madeleine Moon, MP for Bridgend, told British radio.
She voiced concern over reports that the suicides may have been motivated by a desire by the youths to have their names on online memorial pages, or "walls".
The first death was last January, when 18-year-old Dale Crole hanged himself in a disused building. In February, David Dilling, 19, was found hanged near his home, followed by Thomas Davies, a friend of the two dead men.
In August, 17-year-old Zachary Barnes was found hanged, while last month 20-year-old Liam Clarke, a friend of Crole, was found hanged in a Bridgend park. A friend of Clarke, Gareth Morgan, 27, was found hanged this month.
Police say they are carrying out a "thorough investigation" including probing computers used by the dead youngsters.