The launch of Ning last week, a social networking site that anybody can create a potential community on, gives a hint of what's going to be coming down the Internet pipe for quite awhile.
When the company officially launched, they claimed to have 30,000 networks already going. Just a few days later they had already added 6,000 more. Ning has backing from Netscape founder Marc Andreessen.
The point is that it is a prelude of what is a pent up demand; it's only the beginning. MTV (VIA-B) has announced they're going create thousands of new sites and last post we talked about former MTV executive Herb Scannell who is looking to build 101 networks over the next five years.
We'll see networks like Ning come out, along with ones created on a more professional level. That's going to be the pattern on the Internet for a long time. Both will have a place within the overall marketplace.
I picture Ning being something similar to Google's (GOOG) Blogger, in that it takes away the need to know much technologically and empowers you to concentrate on writing and connecting. There will always be an online market for these types of services.
All of this will begin to nibble away at larger sites like MySpace (NWS-A), which serve such a generalized audience. People want something made for their specific interests; a niche in other words.
This is why no matter how scaled a business gets, the world will eventually tire of general sites, and start to gravitate toward what interests them. That's the key to success in online marketing.
Does this mean that MySpace will disappear? I don't think so. I do believe time spent on it will go down, as it already has started to. A Nielsen//NetRatings study shows that it's down 20 minutes a month from a year ago. That's significant because people spend about two hours a month on average on it. That's about a 15 percent drop.
I think for us we need to target the real fans of specific niches. There is a choice overload going on, and it will continue. Sites like Ning already have what would be the equivalent of 36,000 TV channels. I already don't want to mess with that. All I think of is another segment of time spent searching for what I want.
Of course it you find the right thing that interests you, it's possible that search time won't be as important because you'd just stay with that.
The idea for online marketers is that targeted markets are the way to go. Money isn't the real object anymore as you can't buy scale because people aren't interested in scale. They grow tired of the same old general stuff that is offered everywhere. Give them the content and social networking tools they want, and you'll put yourself into the position for great success.
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