Niche Community Sites May Be The Future
NICHE COMMUNITY SITES SET TO BE NEXT AREA OF GROWTH IN NETWORKING
Just as the US websites Ebay and Amazon have led the e-commerce charge, many of the leading social networking sites have also emanated from the US - leaving the UK trailing in their wake, writes Emiko Terazono.
“Americans have been the early adopters of the internet, so it’s natural that social networking was born there too,” says Alex Burmaster, internet analyst at Nielsen Netratings, the online measurement and research group.
Although the spotlight has been on large teenager sites like MySpace and Bebo, the focus is shifting to niche community sites, says Sam Sthi of TechCrunch, the technology blog. In the US and UK what you’re beginning to see are vertical networking sites like Queenspeech.com for gay people and Bottletalk.com for wine buffs.
By Emiko Terazono, Media Correspondent
Published: October 24 2006 03:00 Last updated: October 24 2006 03:00