I like Ivan and the GI net folks so I read the rest of this. He goes on to say"

This is really the principle behind the social web: it's all about conversations."

And that exactly the problem. If you look at even the great and leading work GI net has done with social networks you see no conversations. Look at their social networks and it is almost all one way broadcast from their staff. I believe that he is right in what could happen, but it is not happening yet. If even a large, well funded, and youth oriented movement like theirs cant create conversations then I wonder if Social Networks are useful for constituency-building - at least more than for basic advertising and marketing.