The Evolution of Social Networking.
So over the last few months you have heard probably heard about the sale of MySpace, and the potential Facebook deal for hundreds of millions. How did thisĀ? happen and were is it all going? Lets call a spade a spade; in the earily 2000’s, dating sites were all the rage, raking in more money than porn. Cashing in big were Yahoo!, eHarmony, Lavalife and Match.com. Matchmaking was big business but it wasent long before everyone and their dog had a matchmaking site. The powers that be also knew it was a tough to market online dating to teens, and a need to develop new products for a different martket was required.
So skiping ahead a few years, you have MySpace, hi5, and Friendster all jockeying for users and traffic. They are all the same, you collect net friends and show off your high quaility web cam pics to all your ‘real virtual friends’. It’s obviously a big deal because Yahoo!, Google and MSN have all jumped in with their own social networking site.
Now we are caught up, but where are we going to go from here? New sites have popped up with new Web 2.0 features and bragged about being the next best thing, but whats really different… Some sites focus on a niche, such as music, sports, or video’s, but is that really any different than the big boys? MySpace, with it’s music focussed proved that there is something to be said about having a specific niche. As new niche social networking websites emerge, the same users will likely find themselves spread out amongst all the different social networking sites.
Only time will tell where it is all going, but the players that are better able to evolve with current trends will truely keep their share of the market.