In my last piece I talked about how podcasts, social bookmarking and social networking have moved from being the preserve of early adopters to a regular feature of mainstream websites. It's easy to see the extraordinary pace of change on the web, with hugh volumes of users eager to engage with Web 2.0 applications. The demand for sharing personal information, photos and videos has already extended to online invitations, friendship networks and recruitment tools. Brand recognition for MySpace and YouTube illutrates just how commonplace the practice of interacting online has become.
The sheer volume of consumers and individual professionals makes the question of commerical opportunity even more interesting. For example, there is a whole raft of new possibilities for advertising and PR in virtual worlds such as Second Life. A recent discussion about 'Wispa it' campaign is a case in point. The problem is that as more generic sites are springing up, more and more people are competing for attention. Blogs, which are already reaching critical mass if not total saturation, seem to be a staple of almost every website. Add this to the thousands of sites solely dedicated to them and you can see how crowded this market place is already becoming. Take social networking as an example of this, sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Bebo and YouTube are all fighting for their own foothold.
Even though subtly different a lot of these sites are targeting markets that overlap. With this saturation comes an opportunity for other more niche players. A small proportion of successful companies are already directing their energy in this way with targeted sites like iSporty and LastFM attracting a focused community of users. These sites experience lower traffic volumes, fewer spikes and perhaps fewer bandwith issues compared to that of the big players yet will have a dedicated and loyal following nonetheless.
It's clear social networking is creating its own enviornment. Generic sites have had their meteoric rise, but each one seems to be overtaken quickly by the next online fashion. Maybe it is the turn of the targeted sites to take the baton and reap the rewards.
Think about huge untapped growth areas, like mobile extensions of these networks (generic or targeted)…all possible through widgets and platform development. Mobile is truly in its infancy with respect to social networks.