An interesting post by Sab Kanaujia, VP in NBC’s Digital Media group, on his blog, about NBC’s approach to social networking.

He mentions that the company views it as integral to all its online extension, and not necessarily as standalone destinations. This is interesting in light of a few things: the company has looked closely at some of the startups in the space, including the flirtation with Tribe.net earlier last year. That was mainly for buying the technology. (here)

He writes that the decision was made to internally build the platform grounds up…the decision not to buy was mainly due to “integration challenges and the inability of most of 3rd party social networking destinations to scale, a key aspect for a large media firm like ours.”

Then, the standalone destination debate: “NBCU is building a core social networking platform that will provide various tools and functionality on all our major properties…we’re not launching separate stand-alone destination(s), ala MySpace, Facebook, etc….There is no reason why users should go to/create The Office community on MySpace when NBCU has the competitive advantage and the ability to provide a differentiated experience on NBC.com (e.g., get cast members involved, exclusive content, etc). We’ll also work on creatively linking 3rd party communities for NBCU shows/movies to our official communities.”

And this approach sounds rational in theory, though some holes in this line of reasoning: how do you get users to go to the TV sites in the first place, when they’re aggregated on other sites like MySpace, YouTube and others? TV cross promotion is one, I suppose. Secondly, in NBC’s case, iVillage will serve as a funnel. And then, a hybrid approach of partnership (NBC with YouTube) to drive traffic from destination sites. And then of course, allowing users to take elements of NBC’s shows and embed in their own blogs, pages etc.

All in all, continued dual progression of social networking as a platform technology and continued widgetization of media.