Online social networking sites are now among the most popular web sites on the internet. Facebook is the seventh most trafficked site in the U.S., and millions of young trendsetters have made MySpace and Second Life the most disruptive forces to hit pop culture since MTV. LinkedIn is at the forefront of an emerging networking frontier focused on business and boasting a network of more than 7 million professionals. In a world of IMers, bloggers, podcasters, burners, P2P buccaneers, mashup artists and phonecam paparazzi, people have entirely new ways of expressing and reinventing themselves, and fact can blend with fiction. The founders of the most successful and innovative web sites allowing people to interact, trade, meet and network will explore how their sites are evolving to keep up with the future of online networking.

The idea of INFORUM began with the basic tenet that young people not only deserve but desire unbiased, trustworthy information from a full range of stances, and that they want their sources qualified. The Commonwealth Club has a 103 year tradition of civic debate, and INFORUM honors and continues this tradition by providing a forum for young people to access the best informed, most involved, and brightest minds - be they politicians, business gurus, policy workers, thought leaders, trendsetters or culture-jammers.