While blogs continue to compel the attention of the media, the public and (of course) bloggers, social networking continues to expand into the marketplace with much less fanfare.

Netflix, the DVD rental company that lets you select your movies online and get them in the mail, is building social networking into its offering as part of an effort to fend off competitive threats. Subscribers will invite friends and family to see reviews they’ve written of the movies they’ve watched. If a friend accepts the invitation, the sender gets reciprocal rights to see the friend’s lists and reviews. The San Jose Mercury News has the story.

At UCLA, a social networking site is being added to bruinwalk.com, the university’s campus portal. According to an article in the Daily Bruin, the site is designed to help students connect with their fellow Bruins. “Students create a profile containing a variety of information, including their interests, attitudes towards such topics as politics and religion, and personal attributes such as gender and physical build. They can also include a personal photograph.” The site was created in anticipation of increased demand for on-campus social networking.

In Toronto, the social networking company WowFriends has expanded its service to cell phones. According to a report from the UK, the service “offers access to exciting features of the Web site, such as profile sharing, personal networking, messaging, testimonials, daily horoscopes, people finder, and invitations. More features such as forums, web polls, eCards, interest groups, and ringtone downloading will be available soon.”

Reunion.com has acquired GoodContacts, which invented a social networking application. Already one of the early social networking companies, Reunion.com intends to use the platform to enhance the ability of its 34 million members to stay in touch with important contacts, according to a press release.

I finally had my own contact from among the nearly half-million people in my LinkedIn network. A friend notified me that he’d been contacted by a colleague through LinkedIn (who also happened to work for the same company). The colleague and I had chatted by e-mail several years back when he worked at a different company, and he was interested in re-establishing contact.

At the risk of being told social networking will evolve at its own pace, I believe the communications community needs greater awareness of the impact it will have on our audiences and our ability to community, as well as the potential it holds as a channel for reaching key constituencies. Social networks ultimately will integrate seamlessly with blogs and wikis. If you think the communication landscape is different today, just wait.