Jonathan Mac asked:


We are almost at the end of the glorious year, 2008. Everyone using the Internet would be aware of the fact that the social networking websites have gained huge popularity through this whole year. And it’s now the ideal time to make a review on the 5 best social networking sites of the year 2008. There were no much changes from the start of this year and the reigning champions are:

1. Myspace

2. Facebook

3. Bebo

4. Friendster

5. Hi5

The winner is Myspace

Almost every Internet user knows what Myspace is and more than 80% of them would have used Myspace. The key factors of the success of this social networking giant are, unique social networking web design, the easiness in sharing pictures, communicating with friends, and option to create the best customized social networking profiles. Another cool feature of myspace which we loved is the independent music bands anchored on myspace for easy music discovery. With loads of social networking features enabled through social networking softwares and all of them available for free, Myspace is the Winner.

Facebook – The contender

Facebook, yet another popular social networking website has been a serious competitor of Myspace. With the cool social networking softwares made available, facebook has become addictive to many teenagers (still no harm to them). With top notch security features, facebook is one of the most preferred social networks. So here is what holds facebook back off the winner circle. It is the limited customization options that facebook offers. However, considering all other social networking features that facebook offers, it receives the silver award. Facebook is the contender.

Bebo and Friendster – The Quickly grown Social networks

The growth of the popular social networking site- Bebo and friendster was very quick. These two social networking websites remained unknown by the start of this year and today the reached the 3rd and 4th positions of the social networking website rankings. Bebo, being bought by AOL is gaining popularity each day in the United States. Like all other social media sites, there are cool social networking softwares, personalization and privacy settings. Bebo and Friendster are in the 4th and 5th place respectively.

The rise of other social networks

The popularity of social networking has driven many people to have their own social networking website. With the social networking website design becoming easier each day, many online marketers have created their own business social networks. Though these social networking websites doesn’t appear on the top 50 rankings, they are of great use to the creators. Though these social networks, online marketers are able to promote their products, understand customer needs and get more exposure to their business. With the easiness of social networking website design we are now expecting some huge changes in the rankings of social networking websites in the year 2009.

Review Host asked:


Individuals, of all different ages, enjoy meeting and communicating with other internet users. Despite the fact that individuals of all ages use the internet to socialize, there are certain groups of individuals that do more than others. Those groups of individuals include students, both high school students and college students. For that reason, it is only fitting that there should be a social networking website that has a focus on these particular individuals. That networking website is known as Facebook http://www.filmss.info

Facebook may not be as well known as other popular social networking websites, such as Yahoo! 360 or MySpace, but it is still popular. That popularity is mostly among high school students and college students, mostly because Facebook focuses on these individuals in particular. With Facebook, you are required to register for a specific network. That network can either include the high school or college which you attended or are currently attending. Once you have joined the website, you should easily be able to make contact with others who are in the same network.

The network in which you join can be considered an advantage of Facebook, as well as a disadvantage. See, Facebook does not work like most other social networking websites. Instead of being able to communicate with all site members, you are limited to contact with those that are in your particular network, the high school or college you that selected. The creators of Facebook state that this is for your own safety. Although it is safer for your profile and personal information to be viewed by a small number of individuals, you may not necessity want it to be that way.

Although a large amount of focus is placed on high school students and college students, Facebook has added another popular feature to their website. That feature is workplace networks. By joining a specific workplace network, you will be granted access to other community members who work for the same company as you. This feature is nice, especially since many companies have become large corporations or expanded across the country. You may be able to make contact and become friends with a long-distance coworker that you never knew you had.

Another aspect of Facebook that you may find inconvenient is their lack of available information, before you decide to become a community member. When viewing their online website, which can be found at http://www.facebook.com, it is hard to tell whether or not the site is free to use. Most online social networking sites will make this known right upfront, but Facebook does not. Aside from the price, you should easily be able to obtain additional information on Facebook, before making the decision to become a member. This additional information may include how Facebook works, why you should become a member, how the invite process works, and general rules and restrictions that are in place.

If you are interested in joining the Facebook community, you should do what you should do with all other social networking websites, research. By taking the time to research and examine everything that Facebook has to offer, you should be able to decide whether or not this popular networking community is what you were looking for. There is a good chance that it will be, but if not, do not worry. There are literally an unlimited number of other social networking websites that you can join.

Francis Githinji asked:


Social networking is one of the concept brought out well through social dating sites. Men seeking women no longer have to advertise their needs through lonely columns in the newspapers and in the magazines. Online dating helps the search for perfect dating partners. You can also meet locals through dating sites. If you live in Toronto or in Ontario you can also land on the partner of your dreams online. Many people have the misconception that online dating is used to facilitate long distance relationships. It can also act to bring people from the same area together who would be perfect partners. Local online dating is gaining popularity since it is not possible to be near each other all the time.

Men seeking women can now do it without the tension of approaching a woman physically. Online dating helps people who meet locals to nurture their relationships to the next level. The first meeting is only a tip of an iceberg. A lot of effort is needed to nurture the relationship. The online correspondence helps romance grow to unprecedented levels. On the other hand, social networking is a sure way to meet locals in local pubs, restaurants, weddings among other social gatherings. Men seeking women do not miss in such places. They try very hard to look their best and they arm themselves with love quotes, flirting quotes and love lyrics. It is a good try but you can get better results through online dating.

To meet locals after online dating increases the chances of success since you have enough background material about your first date. The physical meeting is only used for clarification of the already acquired basic information. Men seeking women online have that added advantage. There is no unwanted panicking. Women tend to fall in love easily and so once you have got them hooked it will become irreversible. They will be blinded by your flirting online and chances are that your physical looks will certainly not change a thing concerning her love feelings towards you. Local social networking through online dating is a perfect option for the shy type of guys. Shy guys rarely develop social skills since they always shy away from big crowds. They feel intimidated by strangers and they will rarely make a first move towards an attractive woman.

Social networking has really helped these unlucky brothers. If you are a shy guy, make online flirting your best hobby. The art of flirting helps many shy people overcome shyness. They are mostly allergic to first physical meetings and will do little to impress a woman. Unless the girl is interested in the guy and needs little or no coercing, the guy might face rejection and this mostly lowers his self-esteem. Men seeking women should be dedicated to do all it takes to get the best woman. Learning how to treat women will help you meet attractive locals. Learning how to deal with girls is an important aspect but if you are a shy guy it will not help you a lot if you do not overcome the habit. Take advantage of online correspondence to build your self-confidence and the ability to meet and approach people. Meet locals as well as international potential dates without fear.

Jonathan Mac asked:


Myspace on the lead

Everyone into social networking will have come across the renowned Myspace. Myspace is well known for it’s customization options and today, Myspace is one of the most visited websites in the Internet. Speaking about the statistics of Myspace, an average of 300,000 new people sign up to MySpace every day. Myspace has a record breaking 4.5 billion page views to the site in a single day. Launched in 2004, Myspace has found its success path to the #1 website in a very quick time.

Facebook right behind Myspace

Facebook is another renowned social networking website. With less customization options when compared to myspace, Facebook has fewer users than what myspace has. With over 60 million active users (over 110 active users for myspace), facebook is the second largest social networking website. Facebook has launched more than 13,000 applications to attract more visitors. As a result of this, active members are doubling every 6 months. Facebook has over 65 billion pageviews per month and hence is the sixth most trafficked website in the United States.

Bebo.com tailing Face book

Bebo is yet another social networking website, which is mostly preferred by college pals. According to the users of Bebo, there are many personalization options. Most of the Bebo users say that unlike user submitted themes in myspace, bebo has no spyware or virus risk. There are some very useful applications to remember birthdays, share photos, write blogs, read a friend’s blog, discover new interests, and to just hang out. The popularity of social networks in promoting a business has driven many businessmen to use Bebo for promoting their business. The drawback with Bebo.com is that the profiles cannot be customized using external HTML codes. Hence bebo takes the third place in the world of social networking

Create your own social networking websites

This is the right time to create your own social networking website. Social networking can greatly help you to increase your business. From driving traffic to your parent website to effectively promoting your brand, social networking websites can do it all. Creating a social networking website for your business will also help you to understand the current market trends and work accordingly.  Designing a social networking website is much easier now. You don’t even have to know any programming knowledge. There are many professional social networking website designers who can do the work for you in no time. They are capable of building your own social networking websites that resemble myspace, facebook and bebo. These professionals can design better social networking websites based on your requirement. So what are you waiting for, get a social networking site designed by a professional and jump into the world of social networking.

Dane Phillip asked:


While doing some research on social networking domain, found some interesting figures to share, which will surely drive the social networking development companies.

Market at a glance-

The market for the internet and social networking communities is estimated at about USD 1500M this year.

Social network/Community development and enhancement individually by 2006 stood at USD 700M and is estimated to touch USD 4000M by 2010.

The top 3 player in the market are Myspace, Facebook and Bebo with market shares 80.74%, 10.32%, 1.18% respectively.( data is based on custom category of 20 of the leading social networking websites ranked by market share of visits, which is the percentage of traffic to the site, based on Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users. The percentages represent the market share of visits among the websites within the custom category.)

Growth Path-

Social networking sites are growing 47% year on year increasing from an audience of 46.8 million to 68.8 million in April 2006.

Social networking sites are the reality of the Internet; the content is relatively inexpensive for publishers to produce.

It will become more ingrained in mainstream sites, just as reality TV shows. MySpace.com, the top Social Networking site of all in terms of number of registered users, saw a staggering 367% increase. The graph is still increasing with many more Social Networking players jumping in; the web scene seems set just right for Social Networking.

The social networking sites that are seeing strong growth have developed a unique online presence which is refreshed by user generated content. This promotes ongoing consumers interest and visitor loyalty. The market share of Internet visits to the top 20 social networking websites grew by 11.5 percent from January to February 2007, to account for 6.5 percent of all Internet visits in February 2007.

Mobile Social networking- The next Destination

Social networking is going mobile and is poised for spectacular growth over the next five years, mobile social communities will be attracting members in swarms, more than tripling in size from 50 millions to 174 millions by 2011.

For the moment, MySpace and Facebook are hot. News Corp. paid $580 million last year for MySpace as part of a $1.3 billion Internet acquisition spree. Facebook just received an additional $25 million in venture capital.

Both companies are planning to extend their reach beyond the computer screen to cell phones.

Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless are starting a service that will allow users to post messages on Facebook’s home pages or search for other users’ phone numbers and email addresses from a cell phone.

MySpace has a pact with Helio, a wireless joint venture between SK Telecom and Earthlink, which will allow users to send photos and update their blogs or profiles by cell phone.

Advertising-

Social networks are an integral part of the cultural fabric of the internet and their rapidly growing and demographically appealing audience has attracted the attention of advertisers.

According to the latest forecasts, marketers will pony up an estimated $280 M in the USA to advertise.

By 2010, the online advertising spend will grow to $1.8 billion.

Marketer estimates that the social networking ad spend of the USA will rise to $260 million in 2007(up from $95 million in 2006), and by 2010 is expected to reach $665 million.

Advantages-

Advertising on social networks will teach marketers important ways to reach newly-empowered consumers.

Social networks will have an incalculable influence on all advertising, both online and offline.

If companies can go even deeper to develop marketing efforts that fully embrace the “one-to-one-to-many nature of social networks, ad revenues will soar. This way of advertising will spill over into other channels. The underlying concept will influence the way advertising is done in all media, not just online.

Social Networking- The revenue Generator

Advertisers delight- Advertisers can target local as well as international market at one place.

Social networks are becoming a good environment to sell products, especially if marketers want to cultivate a brand and get its loyal users to do the selling and evangelizing. That evangelism happens in a community.

Recruiters’ Heaven- Now a day, top MNCs are hiring from professional social networking sites like Linkedin. They can also check the social index and compatibility of the candidate along with the background check, which is helping them to save a lot of money.

The cost of gaining new customers is practically nothing because users join voluntarily and provide their own content through their profiles.

The interactive nature of social networking sites keeps visitors coming back which helps the sites to retention rate high.

The cost of running the sites’ web servers is relatively low. If a classic advertising or subscription revenue model is used, low cost social network sites could be highly profitable.

All the above information concretes our philosophy that social networking as a domain for business is going to stay and grow in a rapid rate.