niche networks in the news

So what are these networks and what can they do for me?
Indianapolis Star -- LinkedIn was actually one of the first niche social networks on the Web. It was founded in 2003, got off to a slow start, but is now the seventh-largest social network on the Web, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. It grew more than 160 percent from August 2006 to August 2007 -- faster even than Facebook.

Niche in Growth: Big Social networks see Web traffic declines
Minnesota Daily -- Research released from Internet research firm ComScore Jan. 23 confirmed that the top two social networks, Facebook and MySpace, both saw their traffic decline by double-digit percents.[One] possible reason for the reduction of customers to these sites is an increase in niche networking sites ... for example, for people who like to travel. While Facebook has applications for travelers, it's not the same as a site devoted to these people. 

Generation MySpace Is Getting Fed Up
Business Week -- The MySpace generation may be getting annoyed with ads and a bit bored with profile pages. The average amount of time each user spends on social networking sites has fallen by 14% over the last four months, according to market researcher ComScore. MySpace, the largest social network, has slipped from a peak of 72 million users in October to 68.9 million in December, ComScore says.

Entrepreneurs think niche with new social networks

Reporting  from the Social Networking Conference last week in Miami Beach, the Miami Herald has a great article about how entrepreneurs are focusing on niche communities.

Social Networks for Grownups

WebProNews.com's Jason Lee Miller says the new Moli adult-swim network could change the game.

Writing Room is Just Another Network, So Far

Mashable: Writing Room is a recently launched community for writers. Duh. Now, there are a lot of these sites out there, from niche writing techniques to niche interest groups. Unfortunately, Writing Room doesn’t really have many differentiating factors.

CIO is really covering niche social networks with a passion in recent weeks, with a new article today on the business lessons from launching and managing a niche social network.

If the social networking space was like college, MySpace and Facebook would be the big men on campus. And naturally, lurking behind these beefy juggernauts is a clique of nerds—the niche social networks—and from chess clubs to history teams, these "90-pound weaklings" are quietly demonstrating the vast potential of social networking and showing how businesses can better utilize social networks for their employees.

What are the lessons? Well you can read them all in the latest article by C. G. Lynch in today's story, but here's a quick glimpse:

• The Users Come First; The Technology, Second
• Encouraging Accountability by Controlling Access
• Achieving Work-Life Balance 
•  Make It Highly Customizable
  

Yours truly gives my take on the last bullet point based on my experience thus far running FirefighterNation.com, a social net for firefighters and first responders.

Some other comments from the piece:

Due to their smaller size, administrators at niche sites can monitor user interactions more closely and ensure people follow the rules of engagement. As a result, the creators of these sites argue that users become more accountable for what they post and how they interact with the site.

Facebook and MySpace has been criticized as being too playful for work, while LinkedIn, with its black-and-white resumes and limited inventory of widgets, has been seen as too boring. Niche social networks, on the other hand, have been able to strike a balance between the personal and professional.

Read the full story now on CIO.com:  Four Business Lessons from Niche Social Networks

As networking sites like MySpace and Facebook grow bigger and more amorphous, niche communities are gaining in popularity. By one measure, traffic on MySpace grew 9% from 2006 to 2007, but traffic on sites like Flixster, a networking site for movie-lovers, tripled. Sports-related social networks are among the fastest-growing of these new communities. SkiSpace, for example, has jumped to 10,000 members in the month since it launched, says a story from Business Week today.

Skier Bode Miller is behind SkiSpace, which cost $500,000 to get off the ground but already has some resorts spending at much as $50,000 for campaigns that 'interact more directly with members by using features such as mobile blogging widgets and RSS feeds."

Because SkiSpace caters to a niche market and offers a chance for targeted ads, it brings in more money per view than less customized social networks do, Ryan Blair said in the Business Week story. Blair, who owns software development company PathConnect, partnered with Miller in the venture. Blair expects the site to be profitable by the end of the ski season.

For the full Business Week story, including some scoop on sports niche sites, click here.

Moms love the Internet, according to a release from CafeMom.com, which has been ranked as the 8th fastest growing site on the Web by Compete.com.

Launched in November 2006, CafeMom.com was also named Mashable's Top Niche Social Network recently among several other accolades in recent months. According to the report,

"Moms" would definitely qualify as a broad niche, but the site's growth has been pretty tremendous stacking up at about one million moms strong. The site's features are pretty typical -- with a few 'Mom' bells and whistles such as 'New Arrivals' list and 'Expecting' lists for new Moms, an incredible number of 'Journals' (blogs) by Mom seemingly posted every few seconds ... and all the typical groups, photos and other features you'd expect on a major scale social network.

“We have experienced such phenomenal growth this past year and are thrilled to be among the fastest growing sites of 2007,” said Michael Sanchez, CafeMom CEO. “CafeMom attracts thousands of new members daily and we’re excited to continue our success in 2008 and provide moms with an outlet to find friendships and support.”

For the full release, click here, and whether you are a Mom, Dad or just a curious social network creator, visit CafeMom.com now.

If you were curious if there are networks for Dads, you can check out BrandNewDad.com.

There are a few other 'Dad' and parenting social networks out there of varying levels, but Moms just seem to be a bit more active on the net these days in terms of sharing their parenting experience.

InfoWorld blogger Lena West's Social Media 360 blog had a post today saying something we all love to hear:

"It would appear that niche communities are all the rage - at least for the moment they are."

The driving factors mentioned in the blog follow what a few of the stories we've been linking to in the last week talk about -- Ad dollars on social networks approached $1 billion (with a B) in 2007 -- depending whose numbers you believe. And 8% of that was spent on niche, targeted social networks. Expect that number to go into double digits in 2008

Find out what Lena thinks is REALLY the driver behind those trends in her blog here.

Now as for her headline 'Rich Niche Communities' ... we'll have to wait and see about that one. 

GoodReads.com, a social network for book lovers -- so somewhat of a super-sized niche -- is getting lots of play lately.­

­In a Virginian Pilot story Sunday, the site gets noticed for approaching nearly one million members ... all in just the last year essentially. Launched in December 2006 by Otis Chandler, 30, GoodReads.com users have posted reviews on more than 10 million books. The site was named to TIME magazine's 2007 list of Top 10 Web sites.

If you read books, check out GoodReads.com. You lite­rally can find a review for just about any book on any topic by a wide variety of people. Signing up is easy and like most social networks these days, you can quickly check for your friends already using the service by matching up against your e-mail address book. 

Click to Continue Reading & Comment

While the journalist makes the comment "If we aren't already cyber-networked out, we're hitting online networking fatigue as we navigate the plethora of new social sites dedicated to everything from divorce or paganism to firefighting or anime" ... there's also a solid comment from Fred Stutzman, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina's School of Information and Library Science.

It's all about organizing your socializing, says Stutzman of the University of North Carolina. People hang out mostly at what Stutzman calls "egocentric social networks" such as Facebook and MySpace, and then go to niche sites that center on eating, music or traveling when they're looking for a good restaurant or a new band, or perhaps planning a trip.

"There are these profiles where we spend most of our time and we have these others that serve a purpose or fulfill a need," he says. "So you can have a profile there, but you probably don't spend all day every day there as you would on MySpace."

As many of us have seen in recent months as Facebook has exploded from just those pesky college kids to just about everyone on planet earth. MySpace continues to be, well, MySpace. And of course, lets not forget LinkedIn, which doesn't seem as hip as it used to just a few months ago but still appears to be the main place business professionals in a lot of markets go to connect ... Read the Rest and Comment

Ae reported on CIO.com late last week, a report released by Hitwise revealed that MySpace received 72 percent of the United States’ overall Web traffic from the 10 largest social networks in December 2007. But Facebook, which came in second with 16 percent, remains the fastest-growing social network.

One interesting fact from the report is this:

"But MySpace also saw its growth rate shrink by 8 percent, paling in comparison to Facebook, which increased by 50 percent over last year. Jonathan Yarmis, an analyst with AMR Research, says those numbers indicate that Facebook has been able to evolve from a collegiate and high school phenomenon to engage a broader, older audience."

Right now, Facebook is getting all the credit for slowing the growth of MySpace. But more and more, we're seeing stories about niche social networks and the impact they are ALSO having. We're just starting to see niche social networks develop ... totally the infancy stage. While Ning, for instance, claims over 150,000 networks created the fact is there are probably only a few hundred out there that have significant user bases in the thousands of tens of thousands. And alot with hardly any traction. It isn't quite adding up the the trillions (ok, just billions..ha) of users that Facebook and MySpace have. Yet. ... Read the Full Story and Comment.

An article in USA Today on Thursday mostly centered around privacy issues and social networks, but had some interesting tidbits for niche network creators.

According to the story, in a few weeks Facebook users will be able to separate their friends into social circles and decide which kinds of information they may share by those circles.

"We don't think all friends should be equal ... Our goal is to accurately reflect the social infrastructure," USA Today quoted Facebook's Chris Kelly, chief privacy officer.

Likewise, MySpace will 'empower' users to create sub-sections within their profiles "based on their social circles to personify, manage and control all aspects of their lives."

These changes seem like a normal evolution. Facebook is really already doing this with its networks to some degree, although its not quite as flexible as a user being able to say 'hey, these are by best friends' or 'hey, i want all my buds from the bar here.' ... More: Read the Full Blog Post & Comment