Spaces

This page highlights some of the more prominent online ecquaintance spaces.

It illustrates types of sites, fashions in site naming and the unoriginality of many competitors.

     MySpace

As of July 2006 hailed as the preeminent soft network site (or more wildly the "most disruptive social happening since MTV", MySpace has attracted over 90 million users for publishing personal profiles, photographs and blogs. MySpace was acquired by News Corporation in 2005 for US$580m, rough a tenth paid by Yahoo! for Geocities during the dot-com bubble.

During April 2006 it was claimed to have attracted 65 million unique visitors, with members supposedly spending an average 184 minutes on MySpace per month (compared to four minutes at Geocities) and daily pageviews passing the billion mark. It is claimed to gain 280,000 new users per day.

     Friendster

Friendster - an "an online community that connects people through networks of friends for dating or making new friends" - gained attention from 2003 onwards as a leader in online soft networking but has suffered from fashion ("it's so yesterday"), technical problems and management difficulties.

     Orkut

Google-owned Orkut is a site, similar to MySpace and Friendster, that in advanced economies is perhaps most famous for its dominance of the Brazilian market. It is marketed as "an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends", with participation on an by invitation only basis.

     Flickr

Photo-sharing site Flickr (acquired by Yahoo! in 2005 for US$30m) that popularised keyword tagging of photographs for easy identification and sharing "live chat together with social networks and enabling people to share media with one another in real time"

     Facebook

A MySpace for undergraduates, claiming some 8 million members

     Geocities

Geocities was acquired by Yahoo! in 1999, just before the dot-com bubble collapsed, for a mere US$5 billion. It was established in 1995 as a site offering individual consumers free personal web pages, with an expectation that would form the basis of virtual communities. It has been substantially overtaken by more dynamic services such as Facebook.

During April 2006 it was claimed to have attracted 116 million unique visitors.

     Ryze

Ryze - a "business networking" site "about people helping each other 'rise up' through quality networking" - claimed 250,000 members in 200 countries as of May 2006. Growth appears to have slowed; risers and strivers might want to invest their time in the Freemasons and similar organisations.

     Bebo

Bebo boasts 25 million registered users, generating 3.1 billion page views per month. It is claimed to be the most popular social networking site in New Zealand and Ireland.

     YouTube

Promoted as 'Flickr for video', it has gained attention as an online venue for tagging and sharing short video clips.

     MSN Spaces

During April 2006 the Microsoft response to Geocities and MySpace was claimed to have attracted 101 million unique visitors.

     Friends Reunited

Friends Reunited exemplifies the 'lost friends' category, apparently centred on thirty and forty-somethings. It claims 15 million users and was acquired by the ailing ITV plc for £120 million in 2005.

     SchoolFriends

Australian competitor SchoolFriends claims over a million members and supposedly lists over 200,000 workplaces, schools, universities and sporting clubs.

     Tickle

Tickle (formerly Emode) offers Tarot-based "PhD certified tests" and other compatibility tests, presumably taken seriously by some members of its social network.

     Meetup

MeetUp - "organizing local interest groups" - boasts that it is "a free service that organizes local gatherings about anything, anywhere". It claims over 1.18 million members in 51 countries.

     Tribe

Tribe brashly proclaims that it is a space to "Get connected - invite your friends & family and watch your personal network grow". Who needs Tupperware parties, apparently, when with Tribe you can "Get recommendations from your friends (and their friends). Find local events. Buy or sell anything in the free classified listings".

     Plaxo

Plaxo "keeps you in-touch and up-to-date!" with business contacts

     Spoke

Spoke similarly offers to apparently aimed at salespeople, who are invited to "Harness the power of your enterprise relationship network to increase deal close rates, improve deal velocity and grow top-line revenue". ZeroDegrees similarly helps members to "close deals faster, find a job, make a sale. Meet new people through people you know. Fast, easy and safe".

     LinkedIn

LinkedIn is another site claiming to leverage "the true power of the professional network you already have"

     AlwaysOn

AlwaysOn - "the Insiders Network" - offers opportunities to "Build and maintain your professional, personal profile and peer network in the AO Zaibatsu". Fine if the insiders want to rebuild the Great East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere, otherwise perhaps not.

     VisiblePath

VisiblePath chants the same mantras about special access to business decisionmakers - "unprecedented reach ... allowing sales teams to discreetly leverage the relationship capital of the enterprise throughout the sales cycle".

     Referent

Referent thumps a revivalist tub, announcing "If you are a driven person with high aspiration for massive success, We can help you!" through "a set of business networking tools" for entrepreneurial-minded individuals

     Reunion.com

Reunion.com supposedly provides a venue where "25 million users re-connect with friends and family"

     Stardoll

Stardoll is "a community for girls who want to play with dolls", claimed as having upwards of one million members (girls aged 7-18) - "They're coming three times a week, and they're spending an hour a visit". Don't miss the Camilla Parker Bowles doll.

     VampireFreaks

VampireFreaks occupies a niche for some 560,000 fans of purple lipstick and "gothic industrial culture"   

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