Jupitermedia CEO Alan Meckler
Social Networking Will Be A Bust (And What Did AOL See in Buying Bebo?)
Several times I have written about my doubts on the longterm viabiity of social networking sites. I just read a terrific piece at Silicon Alley Insider about Facebook. This post is chock a block full of caveats about the future of Facebook and similar heavily visited social networking sites. The bottom line is that it is very doubtful that social networking traffic is valuable traffic in terms of making money. Take a look at the insights in this post and the references to an interesting essay in the venerable Economist from England on the same topic. One interesting thought: social networking sites and email are in the same boat. Lots of traffic but no means of making money.
And this brings me to the recent AOL announcement that it is purchasing the Bebo social networking business for $850 million. I do not know the people who run AOL. However I believe they have swallowed the social networking hocus pocus bug and then some with this purchase. Perhaps the Bebo purchase is the bellringer that the craziness over social networking is coming to an end? Sometimes it takes a really dumb acquisition to bring a bubble to an end. Silicon Alley Insider has some good thoughts on this deal as well.
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Funny. Reading your synopsis and then the article itself. I've always enjoyed reading your blog. It's a classic irony. You increasingly use one of the tools of social media to predict its increasingly imminent demise. And social media continues to grow and thrive. Your lens of hope (and frustration) clouds your vision. And it makes you overlook the advantages FB has: privately-held, enough cash to weather a storm, a smart leader, outside developers already making money, more business-oriented aps being developed for the fastest growing segment of FB's demographics: business users. (The money people).
Yes, Charlene's right. And she's brilliant. But you don't need her to tell you this is the trend, the desire, the goal and it's happening in so many of the social media resources. You know, the ones you use to predict its failure.