Good post by Stu Phillips on internet noise and how many of the current approaches to "social networking" have increased "noise" but not "signal quality" and in many cases weak "signals" can't be heard above the noise.
I think this gets at the heart of practical usage of all these platforms now available to connect and share with others. We all have large numbers of contacts but only a handful (15-20) of highly frequent contacts, some larger number of contacts we interact with less frequently, and a significant number with no recent contact activity. The challenge is to separate out low frequency contacts that you desire vs. those that are of passing or even no interest.
Venture Vice 
Interesting point, but arent all contacts good contacts at some point? I don’t think we can completely avoid all of the “noise” (or even want to). In my business, a new contact may become a client tomorrow, or a client 3 years from now – regardless, I need to catalog the initial contact and be able to refer back to it at the appropriate time. It doesnt cost anything to maintain the list. Does purging ever reduce my expenses? I don’t think so.On the flip side, I am note sure that I could justify applying additional resources (time) to more specific “noise reduction” efforts. I doubt I’d experience a greater ROI. Bad contacts that spam me just get the delete key.
Maybe I am not in Stu’s target group in my use of the sites, but I’d be willing to bet that I fall within the use/expectations of most users of such sites.
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