It is know that online communities (social networks) have experienced stellar growth in recent years. However, high tech market research firm In-Stat reports that their future remains somewhat uncertain and sees both membership and monetization as key issues for social networking sites. Only those that can overcome these issues will survive.
In-Stat also found the following:
- MySpace is the most popular social networking website with 140 million members
- 30% of survey respondents pay for premium services or features on social networking sites.
- Site operators are still struggling to find profitable business models. Respondents who indicated no future plans to purchase premium services on social networking websites cited expense and lack of desired services and features as the main reasons for lack of purchase.
- Less than 13% of survey respondents use mobile social networking services. Furthermore, the overwhelming response was that the use of mobile devices for social networking simply was not of interest to them.
- The biggest American generation, the baby boomers, is frequently overlooked.
