Social networking meets WOW?

Are you on Facebook? Did you know there is a WOW Facebook page? I finally joined Facebook about a year ago after multiple friends cajoled me to join. I was on there somewhat regularly for the first six months maybe? But I've since kind of fallen off from it and am hardly on there anymore. I don't know, it was nice at first, but then I kinda started to wonder whether I needed to know what these people I went to high school with (who I wasn't really good friends with, and don't really care to keep up with, but I couldn't be a bitch enough to reject their friendship request) are doing every hour of the day.

Facebook has been nice to get back in touch with old friends you've lost contact with, but after the initial couple of emails, its not like I'm talking to them all the time again. Its not like the friendship has been re-invigorated. The friends in my daily life are friends I choose to have in my life, and I don't think Facebook has had much effect on it. Damn, I sound like an anti-social bee-yotch.

How about Twitter? Did you know Blizz has a twitter site here? I know that a lot of fellow bloggers are on Twitters these days, but I have just never gotten into it. I don't follow anyone on Twitter and I have no plans whatsoever to start it myself.

Are you on Linkedin? I joined Linkedin in business school. Did you know you can see Blizz employees and what kind of jobs Blizz has on Linkedin here? Kinda interesting to see the range of jobs they have.

So why am I talking about this today? Well I came across this article that says that the power of social networking could create an MMO to challenge our little game here. The article itself gives no real specifics, and I do not believe its claim that a MMO within Facebook could challenge WOW.

But I think the article brings up some interesting points. How can WOW keep itself at the forefront of the MMO world? How can they keep the massive multi-player piece of their game fresh and relevant? Is there any part of social networking that could be integrated into the game itself?

I know a lot of WOW players tweet about what they are doing in game. But how about if this was somehow integrated into your friends list? I don't know... could you somehow see the status of folks on your friends list? Here is a couple of what mine would say from the past week:

Hahahaha.

Hmmm how about the reconnecting piece... would you want to connect back with folks from the first guild you ever joined? That random person you pugged with back when you were Level 20? I personally would probably say no, but then again I am an anti-social beeyotch remember? Ok, ok I jest. I'm really not. Sorta. ;)

Or how about our guilds? Guilds seem like the perfect place to look at incorporating social networking ideas. Oh yeah, they're doing those guild achievements in the next expansion... is there any component of social networking there? What else could they do for guilds? Could guilds somehow share pictures aka first kill screenshots? Could they expand the guild message of the day feature somehow?

I'm sure those of you who are heavier Facebook and Twitter users than I am have much better insights than I. So what aspects of the whole social networking craze could you see incorporated within the game?