One of the great, unsung features of Xbox Live, the online service available to owners of Microsoft's console, is that it lets you see what your friends are playing. This sounds trivial amid the hubbub of downloadable games, video chatting and multiplayer connectivity, but it is a vital component. There's the innate human curiosity, but there's also a competitive element – have they bought a hot new game before me? How far have they got into it? My god, haven't they finished Halo 3 yet?!

I've recently been toying with two technologies that expand on the concept. OpenFeint is a social gaming platform for the iPhone that is supported by hundreds of game developers. Users can download it, create a friends list, then see what pals are playing as well as chat and view leaderboards. OpenFeint also integrates with Facebook and Twitter, so you can let everyone know you're addicted to Epic Pet Wars and don't care. It's good for developers, too, because it provides valuable word-of-mouth promotion ("social discovery" to use the accepted parlance). OpenFeint doesn't have this space to itself – there are alternatives, including Scoreloop, which seems more geared toward competing with friends rather than socialising and sharing – but it's attractive, easy-to-use and makes you wonder we had to wait so long for such a service.

I also love watching Tweet My Gaming. The site was set up by GamerDNA, and offers an online social aggregation service that traces the gaming history of its users, letting them compare experiences and learn about new titles. It just rolls along, updating constantly with typically inane game chatter. On the right-hand side of the screen are the most discussed games in the past 24 hours, seven days or since the service was set up at the beginning of June – Sims 3 and World of Warcraft are at the top. A lot of the posts are from people at work fantasising about the games they'll play when they get home, or remembering what they played the night before.

One day very soon, videogames will be almost indistinguishable from social networking services. The Liverpool developer Bizarre Creations is working on Blue, a racing game that has its own version of Facebook – gamers will be able to issue challenges and boasts – and it looks as though it will integrate with the real Facebook. We'll be able to simultaneously play games, talk about games and endlessly transmit our gaming achievements across the blogosphere. Sure, society as we know it will cease to function, but finally our curiosity about the gaming habits of our friends and colleagues will be well and truly sated.