Social Networking Goes Niche

MySpace and Friendster’s runaway popularity and exposure have helped spawn an array of targeted networking sites. Advertisers are noticing

by Catherine Holahan

Andrew Anker knew he had too many "friends" when business associates, looking to curry favor with his blogging company, began striking up conversations about his "cute" young daughter and his recent family outings. "It was a classic salesperson technique," says Anker, "another way to create this creepy familiarity."

So Anker, the general manager of consumer products at Six Apart, moved his blog to his California company's latest product, Vox. It's a social networking and blogging site with strict privacy controls, so users can limit who sees particular posts. Vox users can make some content available to the general public. Other posts and photos can only be seen by users designated as true friends, family members, or people in the user's extended neighborhood (which includes friends of friends).

New Models

Since launching to the general public on Oct. 26, Vox has nearly tripled in size, says Anker. Its success indicates a trend among newer social networking sites, which are gaining traction not by focusing on the mass-popularity model that made News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace famous, but by helping users connect with smaller, more specific, groups.

Take, for example, itLinkz. On Jan. 31, the social networking company launched the first of its 13 planned targeted networking sites. Its initial offering, NurseLinkup.com, already has more than 500 health professionals visiting the site. Michael Ragan, chief operating officer of itLinkz, says that the site launched, in part, to help users frustrated with the party atmosphere of MySpace, which has users with hundreds of thousands of friends and a reputation for having a 25-and-under audience. (Incidentally, comScore reports that more than half of MySpace users are over 35.) "MySpace is for everyone," says Ragan. "Our focus is on communities."

There are several reasons for the more targeted approach to social networking. One is the sheer popularity of sites such as MySpace and Friendster. As those sites have expanded and become among the Internet's most trafficked, some users and potential users have grown wary about exposing themselves to so many people. Some users would rather connect with people with whom they share common interests, such as hobbies or professional associations, other than knowing somebody who knows somebody who is listed as a MySpace friend.

Some Successes

Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst at eMarketer, says a demand for more specific social networks, and the resulting targeted sites, is a natural outgrowth of MySpace and Friendster's popularity. "The inevitable reaction to when something gets too big? Leave for a smaller, more personal experience," Williamson wrote in an August report on social networking.

Dozens of such targeted sites have taken root in the past several years with varying degrees of success. Among the most popular is LinkedIn, a site with 9 million members focused on helping people further their career through professional networking (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/29/07, (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/29/07, "LinkedIn Reaches Out").

Williamson cites Fuzzster, a social network for pet lovers; Yub.com, a site for shopaholics; Model Mayhem, a network for models and photographers; and Mog, a network for music lovers, as just some of the networks now catering to specific interests.

Other sites target demographics believed to be left out of the Friendsters of the world. Gather.com, for example, targets older users, more likely to listen to National Public Radio than hip hop. Chat rooms are focused on particular topics such as wine or politics (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/26/06, "Gather.com: Social Networking Grows Up").

There are financial reasons fueling the targeting as well. Advertisers are expected to spend $1.9 billion on social networks by 2010, up from $280 million in 2006.