A couple of weeks ago Larry King and Aston Kutcher had an on air bet about who could reach 1 million followers on Twitter first. Yes, it was impressive that CNN with it’s name recognition and vast resources could squeak out a victory. But, what was more impressive is that one B-list celebrity could actually come in a close second.

Now, the rumor mill is flying about the possibility of AOL buying Twitter. Why not? What Twitter hasn’t done yet is monetize their website. Tweets are free and there is no advertising yet. But, expect this to change. There is way too much traffic and too much money to be made so advertising in inevitable.

But, tweets are sweet, so try it out if you have 150 characters or less of something to say.

One of the intentions of the Digg Recommendation Engine is to thwart those who want to artificially inflate the rankings of their stories. The stories that you Digg and categories that you visit will be reflected back to you in the form of other similar users who parallel what you’re doing.

What’s missing for me, however, is the popular stories section on the right side under the Upcoming tab that is filled with new articles with a decent number of votes. Besides the slew of articles that get on Digg on the front page of the Upcoming section, the sidebar has been of interest to me as well and something I regularly check out.

One recommendation for the Digg Recommendation Engine is to cut down on the number of “Diggers like you” from 25 where it’s at now, to around 10 and re-introduce the sidebar with the popular new stories.

Just how this new feature from Digg will finally shake out is anyone’s guess. But, my vote is not to replace tools, just add more tools and choices of how each user can arrange their own personal space as this will make for many happy Diggers.

What caught my eye is that social networking came in at 59-percent effective and websites as 58-percent effective. This is in stark contrast to the reports of many webmasters who are reporting huge traffic from social media outlets, but not quality traffic.

The report actually looks at the growing trends between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 technologies and how large companies are adjusting to the use of innovation and new communication tools. Social networking is said to replace Web conferencing in the near future as a way for large online businesses to communicate with customers and vendors.

The most popular form of communication remains with email with an effectiveness as 72-percent. The prognosticators of the report say podcasts will replace email one day, but it’s doubtful that this will be the very near future.

Myspace, Facebook, Digg, Linkedin and the list goes on and on. Millions of people are now interacting online through these mediums. But, according to a recent article in WebProNews there is a dark cloud.

Traffic to Myspace and Facebook dropped a month ago. A company called eMarketer has revised its forecast on how many advertising dollars will be spent on social networking sites in the near future and the number is down $390 million over past projections.

Part of the problem according to eMarketer is that companies and marketing types don’t know how to advertise on social networking sites yet. It’s still pretty hit and miss. Just ask a few bloggers and webmasters who go to social media sites for link-building and they’ll tell you that the quality of traffic isn’t as good as some other methods.

With gasoline prices at all time highs and talk of peak oil in the news, it’s also possible that social networking sites have hit there peak as well. Twitter this, Bebo that, there is only so much time in the day to first be social and second split among the glut of social sites that have sprung up.

But, one thing hasn’t happened that would indicate a peak. And that one thing is mergers among the big players in the market. Imaging a Myspace that Twittered or a Facebook that could Digg.

Who knows? In a year or two we may just see this happen.