With online marketers convinced that people will continue flocking to social networks, eMarketer believes that ad spending the U.S. will increase beyond their original projection of $865 million to $900 million for 2007.
"The lead players, MySpace and Facebook, continue to perform strongly, and will account for 72% of all US revenues in the category this year," says Debra Williamson, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, Social Network Marketing: Where to Next? "Beyond that, hundreds of new social networking ventures are coming online and existing Web sites are also adding social networking capabilities."
In response to "Where does social networking go next?" Williamson answered, "Everywhere." I agree with her. This space has just barely taken off.
There probably won't be a lot of the huge, general sites appearing anymore, as the current ones probably satisify users just wanting to take a quick look around. But in the niche social network space, we're barely even scratching the surface. We won't even be able to keep up with the new things coming down the pipe. But with niches that's to be expected. Those connecting to their interests will know, and in the end, that will be all that matters.
Here are the most popular sites for February of 2007, from Hitwise:
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