Following the last post about Wireds note on the lack of income in social networks; Alex Burmaster (Nielsen Online) states the following to BBC Click: “The slow down in social networks is being somewhat exaggerated. It’s a natural form of any growth that we see in the online eco-system.”
Burmaster is the analyst which compiled the figures showing that there has been a 5% slowdown in new UK users to Facebook and MySpace between December 2007 and January this year.
BBC Click article: Evolution of the social network
The Norwegian company Colt Kommunikasjon did a somewhat similar study which they published a week ago. It shows that 50.000 (out of 1 070 000) Norwegian Facebook users left the social network from february to march (one month!).
Colt Kommunikasjon article (Norwegian): Nordmenn rømmer Facebook
Wired have posted a piece on MySpace and friends economics.
I really would have thought that they did far better than stated, however it confirms my beliefs that the large all-spanning social network sites isn’t neccecery all that good compared to niche sites.
Wired: MySpace and Friends Need to Make Money. And Fast.
After the whole DNA2008 thing I started to check Robin Hamman’s blog from time to time. In a post from 11th of March he really pinpoints with some examples what’s so important with social media. I do believe that the general assumption from many in the media business is that social media is exactly just a plug-in. Or, a piece of software if you like. And as Hamman expresses: “It’s not something you add to a website, it’s something you do”. I believe there still is a pretty long way to go before this is something that is being done correctly, and it gives me great hope that this is still just the beginning of something we quite yet don’t cant se the scope of.
And to quote him once again, I found this one ridiculously funny and accurate: “Doesn’t Work: A blog where comments are simply ignored isn’t social media, it’s just media.”
Photo credit: Mikael Damkier
