We form social networks because the benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs.
… The spread of good and valuable things is required to sustain and nourish social networks. Similarly, social networks are required for the spread of good and valuable things - like love, and kindness, and happiness, and altruism, and ideas.
… If we realized how valuable social networks are, we’d spend a lot more time nourishing them and sustaining them.
Because social networks are fundamentally related to goodness, and what the world needs now is more connections.

I think it’s really a wonderful one to think on. The collective good of our social network - the people we love and care for - rises as we invest ourselves in caring for our social network. Yes, I’m for more of that.

Wasteland is a beautiful and touching documentary as Vik Muniz journeys to his native country Brazil, to Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest garbage dump. As we get to know the “catadores” or self-designated pickers of recyclable materials, we uncover their dignity and despair. It is a story of how the human spirit can transform garbage into beauty and the power of art to catalyze social change and impact lives. Please go see it! - Judy Ko

Effortless and pervasive status updates are approaching quickly. We're going to figure out some pretty amazing uses for them.

We'll also create and refine the art of turning status updates off, lowering their volume, and living in real life.

It'll all come together. You'll see.

via @swissmiss

• They leverage their leading platform that’s built on the sense of urgency around sales and countdown timers everywhere <- these stress me out!
• They are offering something that’s useful to all of their active users, who will ‘Like’ Gilt and seed the Gilt Page into their News Feeds for their
  friends to notice
• New users are essentially sampling the service and what Gilt sales are made of, and they are driving interest to sign up new Gilt users without
  leaving Facebook

See a screenshot walk-through

Visit Gilt on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/GiltGroupe

Update 8/1
This is a timely and related panel (read: slower and more boring than above) from TechCrunch's Social Currency CrunchUp that occurred Fri 7/30

And while I'm updating, I may as well include this watershed talk by Jesse Schell: "The Most Disturbing Presentation Ever: Our Tech Nightmare." While it was delivered a bit tongue in cheek, a lot of people took it at face value. Either way, a pivotal talk on applying game mechanics to our real lives.