It’s been a while since I was first involved in the business social networks stuff; I think it was late 2004 when I subscribed to this new service named Linkedin which aim was to store and improve your network of people.
It was love at first sight and helped me finding some of the best programmers I’ve ever worked with. It was also a chance for my first appearance on a national magazine (it was Class Magazine, if I remember well) in an article on the usage in business environments of this new thing named “social networks”.