According to Hitwise in the month of June, MySpace and Facebook comprised almost 90% of the US visits to social networks. Wow. Now think of how many social networks you use that do not include that dynamic duo. Are your social networks hurting? Do we even know how badly they need us? Wouldn't it suck to pour all of your efforts and time into a social site and then have it dissappear without any warning? What about the connections and people you might have met on that site? Poof. Gone.
It's probably something we all should be thinking about. There are a few reasons that this is so skewed, not the least being that the American public is still learning just what social networks are all about and how they can benefit from them. They gravitate to what they hear and what they know. I can see the Boomer now, logging onto MySpace for the first time and mumbling. "What the hell is this"?
Another reason the numbers are so skewed in the Big 2's favor, is that a lot of the lesser sites are having problems generating revenue. Their succes and revenue are inherently tied to the quality and quantity of their total number of visitors. Why? because most of them are relying on the traffic=advertising=revenue business model. The reason this is NOT working is that advertisers and marketers and site owners cannot think of any better way to generate money. According to Jupiter Research almost 30% of overall advertisers can't figure out which marketing technique to use with social media! They don't know. It's not entirely their fault, but they blame part of it on the lack of measurement tools.
I blame it on not thinking of a better way to monetize social networks in general. Want to know a social network that does seem to be getting it right? LinkedIn. They provide and sell value, and people are willing to pay for it through subscriptions. Don't let the average age of their user escape you either. It's 40. And this is where the answers may be. Look at the demographics for MySpace and Facebook. They both skew lower and younger. Their purchasing decisions are different, if not nil.
So until we can collectively think of a business model that can inspire the user to see the value, and can see the ROI in investing in their social network, we're stuck with the traffic=advertising=revenue business model. Seems to be working for MySpace and Facebook, so who's complaining?