Social Knowledge TECHNOLOGY ISSUES Building social networks requires an understand- ing of multiple technologies. Bandwidth optimi- zation, scalability, security, usability, stability, database interfaces, analytical tools and math- ematical algorithms are all important issues that need to be adequately addressed. Social networks have become a real power that drives people on the web. Many social networking websites have millions of users and some even count their user base in tens of millions. A significant example is Facebook that has around 300 million users. "Social media is not just going to be in pure- play sites like MySpace and Facebook. It's going to become increasingly prevalent across retailers, media and entertainment. It drives a lot more requests and a lot more bit-traffic across these networks", says Mike Afergan, CTO of Akamai (Afergan, Mike (CTO of Akamai), 2008) a content BANDWIDTH According to Gartner (Gartner, 2008), "Ultra- high speed residential broadband will create a bandwidth divide that will emerge in the next three to five years, with urbanized areas benefit- ing from faster download speeds while rural areas will not". Rapid downloading and live stream- ing of movies and television shows will be key drivers encouraging consumers to pay more for ultra-high speed broadband Internet services and distribution of user generated content through e-mail, social network sites, and video-sharing web sites will also increase demand for ultra- broadband. Till date, Myspace, Facebook, and YouTube are the bandwidth eaters because of music downloads, massive number of photos, and graphics for every user page. On the other side, a text-based social network like LinkedIn is consuming far less bandwidth per user. A poll