All in Associations

Overlapping and Evolving Online Communities are becoming the Rule, Not the Exception

Overlapping and Evolving Online Communities are becoming the Rule, Not the Exception

Dennis D. McDonald
Associations, Business Models, Industry Analysis, , , Web 2.0
I received an email last night from a reader of this blog asking me to comment on cost estimates he had received for the development of a new social networking service. He wants to offer targeted services to a specific but large population segment. His thinking corresponds with a lot of interest people have these days for applying social networking techniques in a profitable or meaningful way to different population groups — young people, old people, professionals, managers, sports enthusiasts, podcasters, jobseekers, lonely hearts — you name it. If there isn’t already a MySpace/YouTube/Linkedin clone targeting any group that can write a check or reach a keyboard, there soon will be.

Professional Social Networking Is Growing!

Dennis D. McDonald
Associations, Enterprise 2.0, Linkedin,
One question I have is how long "social networking" can be a viable business given its steady march into the mainstream. As more and more of our personal and online communications become potentially definable, acquirable, and -- what's really important -- sharable in social networking terms, social-networking-enabled communications will become the norm. When that happens, social networking "features" become commodities and, following basic economics, prices are driven down.