Social networking sites focus on building and managing online social networks for communities of users who share interests and activities. Social network services provide ways for users to interact, such as chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, and participation in discussion groups. Online social networks are evolving rapidly:the early 'horizontal' networks based on demographic affinity are now being augmented by networks based on 'vertical' interest areas such as news and music.
With Ad revenues falling, content owners are looking to develop alternate revenue streams more closely tied to their users' online behaviour. In a slowing worldwide economy, these initiatives are key to their survival until growth returns to the market. YouTube exemplifies the challenges that the sector as a whole faces in the coming months.
Michelle Wong, 26 April 2009
MySpace has launched it music store at long last with all the major record labels on board but it will only be available in the US to start with. The focus of the store will be on full-length audio streaming, with music downloads provided by Amazon MP3, so the service is not really a direct...
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Sarita Jones, 25 September 2008
AOL has now formally concluded its acquisition of the Social Network, Bebo, for $850 million. Bebo will no longer operate as a stand-alone site, instead AOL is combining Bebo, AIM, ICQ and its other community platforms into a new business unit known as the People Networks with some 80 million...
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Michelle Wong, 08 June 2008
As we progress through 2008, Google’s market capitalization stands at just over $150 bn, with revenues of nearly $15 bn, EBITDA of $5.62 bn, a trailing edge P/E ratio of 51.40, and $13 bn in cash at the bank. With some analysts forecasting a further rise in the share price, is this valuation...
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Uday Phadke, 29 February 2008
The impact of Social Networks is growing rapidly in the UK. Social networks now account for more than 5% of traffic and 20% of all page impressions in the UK, and younger users are more likely to use them than web-mail based services. Viral marketing campaigns are also likely to be dominated by...
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Michelle Wong, 25 February 2008