With consumers using a greater spectrum of products they are beginning to expect greater functionality from these services and the ability to integrate them for cross communication, as such the future in this field seems unclear.

There are literally hundreds of examples of companies attempting to harness this. These range from the very first instances such as MSN Messenger giving users opportunity to import contacts through to applications that allow you to connect to sites such as Twitter or Facebook through your phone.

XBOX, Microsoft’s gaming platform is looking to take this idea one step further. Originally, a gamer could access their Windows Live account as well as social network through their XBOX Live gold membership; connecting and playing with other members. With previous updates they have also allowed subscribers to download movies or watch Sky Television on demand.

More interestingly they are looking to make the XBOX dashboard your one-stop-hub for all your social networking needs. Not satisfied with having Windows Live and XBOX Live social networking tools on the console Microsoft have made agreements and are developing tools that allow their users to link their XBOX to both their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Clearly, the other big-guns in the industry such as Playstation will be looking to follow suit.

With this and the very well publicised war that is being waged on the battleground of the smart phone industry one thing is certain; the future for companies looking to harness social networking tools for consumer use relies on cross communication and easy one-stop functionality.