The National Post’s new Geek Boutique blog features a nice piece of link bait – “The Death of Web 2.0 is Upon Us”. It’s a post about how many companies and governments are banning Facebook amid the fear employees will waste too much time on the Web. The writer, Peter Nowak, goes on to say that “until it can be demonstrated exactly how a business can use Facebook to [improve productivity and outreach], companies and governments should get the benefit of the doubt and be able to block access to whatever sites they want. After all, most businesses frown on employees using company time to surf for porn, right?”

Nowak may be right about companies being concerned about time-wasters but I would argue that most workers are responsible about how much time they spend online. In fact, providing your companies with online guidelines (e.g. don’t surf porn, don’t spend too much time on eBay, Facebook, etc.) is a better approach than banning access to Web sites, which suggests you don’t trust the people who work for you.

As well, the more I think about why Facebook has become so popular among many professionals who had little or no time for MySpace, it’s because it has intriguing potential to be a useful networking and communications tool. The ability to connect with peers and colleagues, for example, could make it as valuable as LinkedIn – and you don’t hear much about any companies banning the use of LinkedIn, do you? By the way, the National Post should think about getting rid of the need to register before you can make a comment.

By the way, eMarketer expects ad spending on U.S. social networking sites will climb to $2.5-billion by 2011 from $900-million in 2007.