Anyone who thinks that sites like MySpace and FaceBook are the preserve of the young are in for a re-think. At a Davos dinner called "Add a Friend: Accept or Decline", the discussion was all about how community sites can be used for product testing and brand building. One of the participants, Forrester Research CEO George F. Colony, predicts that corporate participation on the social sites is "going to explode" in the year ahead.

Other Forrester predictions:

* Companies will establish new positions called community managers;

* The formation of "buying clubs", where users band together to negotiate on price and other issues;

* FaceBook's biggest weapon against Google would be its social search function (a service that would eventually lead to the end of sites like Match.com, forecast Reid Hoffman, the president of the the business network LinkedIn.)

* More "sygma"--Forrester's way of saying that large companies would use the social networks to test and improve their products.

And, of course, to find new ways of selling them to us.