TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS -- Dec 22 -- As of Wednesday, Dec. 21, Myspace.com had 44,448,308 members and accounted for 10% of all online advertisement viewed in November. Why do 44 million people want to be Tom's friend? "You can use it in a very local way, to keep up with your friends; it's kinda like a telephone with pictures. Plus, it's music-oriented, so you can find a lot of new bands." This user said, the ability to "get rid of" friends and allow only people you want to communicate with to send you messages makes the site more personal - more like a virtual clubhouse than the 44 million-member network that it is. Another online social network is Xanga.com, which has less emphasis on music than Myspace.com. Half of the users of Xanga.com are between the ages of 12 and 24. Facebook.com is marketed more toward college students, but a high school version was recently launched as well.
The full article was originally published at Tahlequah Daily Press, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Are social networks good or bad for the online personals business? Your comments please.
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"Are social networks good or bad for the online personals business? "
They deal with two very different demographics and serve very different purposes. Most social networks deal with a younger demographic fixated on customization of how one's virtual identity is projected to friends and friend of friend peer networks. This demographic when engaging in what we might call dating, simply calls it "hanging out" or "hooking up". The social architecture of how this is emerging is very different than online personals in my opinion.
Many online personal sites seems to be pushing matching products that are more serious dating/ marriage minded in their approach.
Additionally online personal sites have an underlying tension in their business model. If they are a subscription based site, why would they want their customers to succeed in finding someone? Especially if that means losing a customer to "success". Seems like an obvious conflict of interest.
In a social network the social interaction percolates on and on. And the big ones have a distinctly different business model.
If online personal sites continue to be static, overpriced brochure ware that deliver less and less value, they could very well be rendered irrelevant by social networks.
Posted by: Jon Myers | Dec 28, 2005 at 12:40 AM
Actual Social Networking Sites are cheap channels for deliver ads to users (mostly infomercial-advertainment companies on the web for teens).
I listened the MP3 version of the podcast:
http://www.podcastsinglesnetwork.com/podcasts/dii/005/SPN_DII_005_05-12-20.mp3
I agree with David Evans that "Online Dating Sites will coexist with Social Networking Sites", "serious daters always pay money for a valuable service, they invest time and effort on dating" and "casual daters are moving from Dating Sites to Social Networking Sites".
Jon Myers said above: ""Additionally online personal sites have an underlying tension in their business model. If they are a subscription based site, why would they want their customers to succeed in finding someone? Especially if that means losing a customer to "success". Seems like an obvious conflict of interest.""
A Serious Online Personals Site always wants their customers to succeed in finding someone because:
-the very satisfied customer who leaves the site because he/she succeed most probably will recommend the site to 10 or more persons!!!
-dissatisfied customers leaving the site because he/she not succeed in finding someone (compatible real person) most probably will speak against the company to 100 or more persons!!!
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
[email protected]
Posted by: Fernando Ardenghi | Dec 28, 2005 at 02:03 PM