David Kirkpatrick of Fortune Magazine has an interesting column out today called "I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends of Friends of Friends." It highlights LinkedIn, and Joi Ito (LinkedIn's most-linked-in participant, who not coincidentally invited Kirkpatrick into the system). He raises the Big Question: "Where's the money?" And at least one VC, Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital, _assures_ him that it's there, saying "Free e-mail like Hotmail had viral marketing but not increasing returns. I see both in this social-networking thing. As the network gets bigger and bigger, there's more value to incremental users." Hard to disagree with Gurley about the value to users as the network increases, but we're a long way from evidence that the value to users will be sufficient to drive a business model. (Via Joi Ito)