Social Networks Gaining on Internet Portals

Compete writes "We have some interesting analysis on how Social Networking sites compare to portals. From a sample size of around 2 million US people, Compete concludes that social networking sites are quickly approaching the traffic level of the big portals like Google and Yahoo. They liken the growth of SNS to email in the 90's. Their key findings: 1. In June, 2 out of every 3 people online visited a social networking site 2. Since January 2004, the number of people visiting or taking part in one of the top online social networks has grown by over 109% 3. Social networking sites are now close to eclipsing traffic to the giants — Google and Yahoo"

Comments

In the minority again

[Overzeetop]

2 out of every 3 people online visited a social networking site

I don't get it. Maybe I'm just too old, but they hold practically zero interest for me. Too old or just too busy (but not to busy for /.)?

Re:In the minority again

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I thought /. was Social Networking For Geeks. I don't picture a lot of obscure Hitchhikers Guide jokes in astrophysics threads on MySpace.

Re:In the minority again

[daviddennis]

Well, it's a way to connect with people. If you're satisfied with the people you have, then a social networking site probably looks pretty stupid. You wouldn't surf match.com if you weren't looking for a date, and you wouldn't be on myspace if you weren't looking for people to connect with.

If you are, social networking sites can seem pretty neat since there are a lot of people there, some of who are interesting.

What's really appealing about myspace is that although most people wildly misuse their "space", it is a place where they can be creative and put out things that they like. Those things are not what most programmers think they should like, but the point is that they can be in control and there's plenty of help available to make their profile look as they want it to.

Human beings in general seem to be more interested in whether something looks "cool" than whether you can read it or not. And that's fine, because they are people and they are expressing themselves. And on myspace, it's relatively easy to find them, which is where I think social networking has a huge advantage over standalone blogs.

Someone who put hours and hours into breaking myspace has a pretty interesting perspective on it. Funny, too. I'm Popular.

I'm doing my own site, aimed at more mature people than myspace, but it's not ready yet. To show social networking with an adult flair, I consider my best competition to be Tribe. It used to have adult profiles and ... interesting ... pictures, but sadly their corporate backers decided that wasn't a brainy scheme and removed it. But it's still pretty much social networking for people who have passed the Myspace stage.

D

friends

[stormi]

Lately people are desperate for friends and life partners. It's obviuos if you just pay attention to the media. How many dating sites are there? Chat rooms? Interest groups? In recent years I've noticed that less and less people seem to be able to go out, meet people, and make friends. This seems to especially be a problem for older rather than younger people. They only social skill they knew was going to bars, and when they realize they no longer want a drunk friend/partner, they face complete isolation. Any new tech that allows people to be social and safe will be popular.

Thanks to spam...

[bananaguyc]

Since spam has all-but ruined the usefulness of e-mail for non-techies, social-networking lets me communicate with my non-techie friends from work and college without being bothered with keeping track of their current e-mail, their IM usernames and-so on. This is important for matters which are somewhat important, but not urgent enough to bother someone by ringing their cell phone. Prior to MySpace - I've had a few occasions where my friends e-mailed me and I missed their messages among all the Spam B-S that often disguises itself as legitimate mail with innocuous subjects like "Hey". I've also had the same issue when e-mailing other people "I e-mailed you two days ago, you didn't get my message?". And no, I am not a teen. I am 26 years old, post-college, and MySpace has become a good replacement for e-mail in keeping-in-touch with my peer-group which is in their late 20's and early 30's. The whole thing about MySpace being primarily for the teen group is definitely overplayed and not really true anymore.

Oh, and FP again

[Overzeetop]

Maybe /. is a social networking site, and we've just missed the reclassification that everything from the usenet (well, bbs, for that matter) on up to forums and the personal blog sites have been social networking. It's just a new flashy term for what we've always been doing. *shrug*

Oddly, even though my /. time has been somewhat limited of late, I seem to have gotten in inordinate number of first posts in recent weeks. Several years to get the first one, a couple of months to score another three. Go figure.