A new report published this week by Forrester estimates that over $5 billion will be spent on social networks by 2013 in North America and Europe alone.

Coming above six other Web 2.0 categories - mashups, widgets, wikis, blogs, podcasting and RSS - social networks have been clearly identified as this years' must-have inclusion in any large companies' online budget.

Although this research hardly comes as a surprise, it will be interesting to see what will supersede the current trend.  Attendees of this week's "Geek Conference" in San Francisco will most likely get a taste for what's ahead on the new technology event horizon.

Source:  BBC Technology