I’ve always thought that while the Internet does a great job of removing the barriers of geography – and that’s a good thing – ultimately people care most about their locality. After all, if you want movie listings or services you want them locally. If you’re looking for career advice you’ll probably want to talk to a peer. That’s the theme behind social networking.
So where are social networks going? Are they transient (as someone once wrote “training wheels for the Internet”) or are they here to stay?
Talking with some students last week they thought that in their current guise (Myspace, Bebo etc.) they were transient. They open and shut sites regularly – and the only “organizations” successfully reaching them on MySpace or Bebo were bars and clubs 
So social networks may stay, change or disappear – or they may even become MORE niche. That’s the idea behing Ning the latest venture from Netscape wunderkind Marc Andreeson.
At Ning you can set up your own social network…
For a test I’ve set up http://onlinepr.ning.com
[publicrelations was already taken]
Have a look.
if you build it the people will come… « The last man in Europe… // Mar 8, 2007 at 11:37 am
[...] Facebook, myspace, bebo – all soo last year – so what is the social networking site of the now? Well it can be whatever you want it to be. Thanks to Tom for flagging the Ning offering (build a social media site and the people will come – well you might need to tell people about it first.) Tom was quick off the mark and has set up http://onlinepr.ning.com/Â - sign up now… [...]