The Buzz Report: Five reasons social networking doesn’t work – CNET.com:

By Molly Wood, section editor, CNET.com
Thursday, June 2, 2005

The word on the street lately is that social networking is in trouble…” etc…etc..

Then she goes on saying how Friendster is in trouble, which is probably true, but I beg to differ as to her general conclusion. The more focused, targeted sites do and will work.

LinkedIn has a business focus, the invitation-only approach actually enhances the value of the network for business use. I received several calls from headhunters who found me there, and who all claim they no longer go to Monster and the likes, they use LinkedIn as the primary source to find candidates. LinkedIn is clearly for the business crowd, and I think it makes sense to keep your business and social life separate…not doing so is what hurt Ryze, the early player in this game.

As for “finding the money” they started to charge for job postings, and plan several other premimum services. I am not worried about LinkedIn’s survival as the primary business networking site. Hm … what did I just say? Perhaps that’s a differentiator, i.e. “business networking”vs. “social networking” (?)

Then again, there is the phenomenal success of Thefacebookwith a completely different business model: they are a classic media company, reveneue comes solely from advertising, all functions are free. Why are they successful? Very focused on a segment of the population (college students), and they basically map communities that already exist in individual campuses.

Bottom line: the CNET article is probably right, generalist sites without a particular focus will die; after the initial spike in signups users realize there’s not much to do there –  but focused, targeted sites that offer added value are here to stay.

Technorati Tags: Social Networking, Business Networking, Social+Software, LinkedIn, Ryze, TheFaceBook