Any student of online social networks can see that right now, less is more.
It’s not what you think. Social networks aren’t shrinking. The audience they’re trying to reach is. Think LinkedIn or Facebook, but way smaller.
Exhibit A. Today, a new Website for women over 40 called Women on the Web, or Wowowow.com, said it would launch Saturday. According to this story in today’s New York Times, the backers are a who’s who of big-name women in media including Leslie Stahl, Liz Smith and Mary Wells. Celebs like Lily Tomlin, Candice Bergen, Whoopi Goldberg, Marlo Thomas will make guest appearances.
Earlier this week, Penelope Trunk spun off the BrazenCareerist.com, network from her long-time blog of the same name. The Website is a mash up 50 Gen Y bloggers writing about all the stuff that Gen Y-age people care about from a Gen Y perspective.
Recently, I got invited to join The Content Wrangler, a Website for people who manage content in some way, shape or form. A couple nights ago my husband the lawyer brought home the latest issue of California Lawyer with an article about social networks for lawyers. I’m sure there are more out there now, and lots more to come.
It’s something to watch. These networks are to the Facebooks and MySpaces of the world what niche magazines are to Good Housekeeping, People and Reader’s Digest. No doubt they’ll go after advertisers that want face time with the particular demographic they represent. Watch for big membership drives so they can boost their circulation figures and attract more ad $$$.
Many of these networks are relying on blogs and contributions from members for a substantial part of what they publish. That could be an opportunity for freelancers, to market ourselves, build up expertise, and who knows, maybe even make some money.
I think the growth will be in the use of smaller, more focused, niche social networks that cater to a particular interest, hobby or vocation. These smaller sites will allow like-minded individuals and groups to connect, exchange ideas and receive genuine and useful support.
These kinds of sites will also be attractive to advertisers as they get targeted demographics to spend their online advertising budgets on.
Thanks to sites such as ning, anyone can start a niche social network about anything. There’s also a search engine to help find niche social networks that lists thousands of networks for a whole range of subjects, http://findasocialnetwork.com
Great Blog Post!
I spend way too much time thinking about SocNets and I often think we are approaching a saturation point (if we haven’t already). As a user with multiple accounts on multiple sites, I see two things happening:
1) The tolerance for receiving and accepting invites has worn thin.
2) Sites that require less input in order to get interaction (Twitter, Pownce, etc.) is growing. The irony of it all!!!
I actually started an experiment of sorts with SocNets called “Where’s My Monkey.” The whole goal on my part is to create a SocNet in an attempt to unite all SocNets. I don’t ask for participation… all I really ask for is that our users help us spread the word by putting our badge on their other sites. In addition, we take our SocNet’s persona and put him on other sites as well. It’s been interesting but time consuming.
The funniest part is that the initial reaction we get is, “(SIGH) You want me to join ~another~ Social Network?”
How many of these things can truly exist before the whole thing goes the way of the dot com bust?
… and who will be the survivors this time?
Sorry for the long comment… Ya got me thinking. =)
Hi,
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.