Knowledge@Wharton Warns of Possible Shakeout in Social Networking Sites

And, yes, it does come down to money – what is the financial model that these sites are built on? The search continues by these sites to find ways to monetize.

While the article compares some of the biggest sites to the smaller ones, in the world of Internet marketing if a niche social networking site is profitable, it doesn’t necessarily mean the site has to aspire to rival the top sites.

Another area of interest discussed by the article is how much private data these sites have, and how they can make use of this data (sell this information to advertisers) without jeopardizing privacy issues.

The article makes an important point about some of the recent scenarios of larger social networking sites buying smaller sites: “New services will emerge and be absorbed into winning platforms for their features, engineering skills or both.” Small companies may be able to develop innovations quicker than larger companies. Why reinvent the wheel when you can buy the technology?

Interesting statistics on the growth of various social networking sites are included in the article. You can read the whole article now.

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Wharton Grad ‘80
www.MillerMosaicLLC.com
Los Angeles, CA
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