Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb posts that Microsoft has hired danah boyd, who Marshall says is - “probably the most high profile academic in the world focused on the emerging web and its social consequences.”

boyd (who only uses lowercase when typing her name) is a leading expert on how the next generation is using social networks. She caused a ruffle when she concluded in a report that “The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other ‘good’ kids are now going to Facebook. …MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, ‘burnouts,’ ‘alternative kids,’ ‘art fags,’ punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm.”

She spells out her own thoughts on joining Microsoft Research New England here.

One thought re Microsoft and its compulsive obsession with the desktop…aren’t the next generation of social networkers supposed to be surfing exclusively via mobile devices?