It's no secret that social networking websites and media -- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. -- are all the rage today. People are making connections with one another in ways that were unimaginable just a few short years ago. However, some people are going beyond updating their friends on what they had for dinner or their big plans for the weekend. They are using social networks to start new businesses. Rodney Rumford and his business partner Sean Callahan -- cofounders of TweetPhoto -- are two such people.

Last March, Sean -- a business student in London -- had the idea of starting a new photo-sharing service for users of Twitter. If you are a Twitter user, you know that the site only allows users to send text messages and not photos. Thus the growing popularity of photo-sharing sites such as TwitPic, which Sean hoped to surpass.

As Sean's new service began taking shape, he knew that he would need help to move TweetPhoto to the next level. He first sent out a tweet looking for 5,000 volunteers to test the TweetPhoto prototype. He next sent a tweet to Rodney Rumford -- a social media developer here in San Diego -- asking him to check out TweetPhoto. One thing led to another, and Rodney and Sean paired up to move the business forward.

TweetPhoto launched its service to the public on April 27, 2009, and it quickly started to grow. The company has had its ups and downs -- on May 19 the site was hacked -- but Sean and Rodney keep pushing forward. With celebrities such as Britney Spears, Suze Orman, and Billy Bush using the photo-sharing service -- and with TweetDeck kicking TwitPic to the curb and replacing it with TweetPhoto -- the future looks bright indeed for this pair of entrepreneurs.