To go through, sign-up for, and review the major players in the world of social networking is a major undertaking, and it seemed to only make sense to start with the golden child of the group, MySpace. Since it’s release in 2005, MySpace has been the biggest thing on the Internet. With it’s sale to News Corp. for $580 million, MySpace became one of the biggest, if not the biggest, websites sold since the bubble burst in the late 90’s, and has continued its unprecedented growth since then. Despite it’s obvious appeal to the masses, MySpace is hardly the answer to everyone’s online needs, and although users are drawn to the site, it seems quite obvious they would be just as quick to jump onto the next big thing. I hope you enjoy our MySpace pageÂ? and our review of the site.

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Although it’s still somewhat of a rumour, AOLTimeWarner is the largest company in the Entertainment industry and the 40th ranked company on the Fortune 500. If there is a rumour that they will be releasing a “MySpace Killer,” it simply can’t be ignored. AOL has made a couple different moves to capitlize on the ever-growing power of the social networking niche, first opening up AIMÂ? to harness the power of their userbase, and then using that to help launch “AIMSpace.” Business 2.0 has a short article about the project, and has linked to a post on downloadsquad.comÂ? by Armughan Javaid, Program Manager in AOL Technologies’ Open Services group, that seems to confirm the soon-to-be-released website will allow non-AIM members to join.

One of the points I like to stress in talking about social networking websites, and really any website or businessÂ? that tries to slide into such a crowded market, is what will make them different or give them an advantage over those already established. With AIMSpace, it is quite obvious. AIM has an activeÂ? userbase of over 63 million, and by creating their own website from scratch, many of the downfalls/shortcomings of MySpace can be avoided - programming inÂ? Web2.0Â? and integratingÂ? popular AOL features are the two that firstÂ? come to mind. There are several questions that come to mind when thinking about social networking websites, as I mention in my Un-Social Networking post, at least there is an angle to be worked by AIM - or 63 million different angles to work.

After gaining a lot of press over the rumoured $2Billion purchase price, Facebook announces that not only was it never really for sale, it has just raised $25Million in VC funding. Although this may confirm the company is no longer for sale, one must now question the source of the initial sale rumour. Was it merely a tactic to gain some publicity beforeÂ? looking or during negotiationsÂ? for funding? We may never know. But a better question to ask might be why invest in another Social Networking website?

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A post on gigaom.comÂ? by Robert Young bring up an interesting point about the future ofÂ? media content. In the last few years, several major companies have made moves to take control of the mainstream media content, Â? and now, it seems, the major TV networks are making their own moves. Major TV networks like ABC and Fox (both mentioned in the article) have increased their web presence, providing their shows with ads/commercials on their websites. In the near future, we could see a very big shift in the production and distribution of media content and the creation of two very separate “poles” - commercial and independent media.

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Silent Rob and I recently started an ambitious project to review many of the major social networking sites in the next few weeks. Part of it is strictly personal interest, but there is a certain “research” aspect of it as well. Of course the point of a social networking website is to make contacts. At this point, net-friends and dating/hooking-up seem to be the majority of contacts that come from these sites, and it does become important to wonder, can these sites ever create real-world, business or industryÂ? contacts, or does it really take away from being social and actually meeting people.Â?

One of my first thoughts was of Meetup. A different spin on a social networking site, Meetup actually arranges real meetings - quite an amazing concept on the web. It seems the site has been around for about four years andÂ? has a couple million members, but I think it has an interesting angle to work.

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