One In Five 'Net Users Have Visited A Social Networking Site, BURST! Says
- by May 6, 2004
The survey found that 19.2 percent of respondents say they have visited a social networking Web site such as Friendster or Tribe.net. Of those respondents, half (50.5 percent) actually registered and joined these sites. Men were slightly more likely than women to say they have visited a social networking Web site (21.7 percent versus 16.7 percent). However, women are more likely to register and join (53.3 percent versus 47.9 percent).
Respondents under the age of 24 are most likely to say they've visited a social networking site, with one in four (26.8 percent) saying so. Among those 55 and older, one in ten (10.4 percent) say they have visited a social networking Web site.
"Social networking sites, such as Friendster and Tribe.net, create communities by encouraging enrollees to invite friends to join, so friends bring friends who bring friends, and a virtual social community has been created," comments Chuck Moran, BURST! Media's Market Research Manager, in a statement.
However, the business models for stand-alone social networking sites such as Friendster, Tribe.net, Meetup, and others have yet to prove themselves, at least according to Nate Elliott, analyst, Jupiter Research. Jupiter issued a report earlier this year entitled "Social and Business Networks: A Phenomenon in Search of a Business Model." While Tribe.net counts Knight Ridder Digital and the Washington Post Co. as two of its investors, Elliott isn't particularly bullish about the sites' prospects for existing apart from large portals.
"There's no significant business here on the social networks side--they cannot exist as stand-alone businesses. As part of a portal, they may actually work out great," Elliott says.
Google's Orkut may function well within an expanded array of Google services, including its controversial Gmail service. The strength of living inside--or in a relationship with portals like Yahoo!, America Online, iVillage, or Microsoft Corp.'s MSN--is that Web surfers can venture to multiple content areas and linger longer in the network overall. Portals also have the ability to track and harvest behavioral data. Microsoft's MSN in late March said it's building a social networking function on top of its MSN Messenger platform.
"Yahoo! owning a social network could bring Yahoo! value," Elliott says. He's less negative about professional networking sites such as LinkedIn and Ryze. "Their customers can expense or deduct the charges," he says. After being invited into such networks, a person pays if they want to contact someone, and if they choose to belong to the premium network that offers more services. "[The professional networking sites] are all different states of moving toward a subscription business model."
"There's only one thing that people want to do with social networks, and that's looking for dates and romantic relationships. Everything else people want to do with social networks is free," Elliott says.
Jupiter's research earlier this year found that only a third (32.7 percent) of online users are interested in using online social networks, and only 6.2 percent of online users say they want to use online social networks to find dates, whereas 21.3 percent look for dates on dating sites. Other findings in the BURST! research include:
*Three out of four (75.9 percent) respondents say they have used the Internet to interact with other individuals on some type of social basis in the past six months. Other than email, the most common social activity online is using an instant messaging service.
*Other online social activities that respondents actively participated in during the past six months include posting or sharing online photos (49.2 percent), playing an online game (48.6 percent), sending an online greeting card or invitation (47.5 percent), visiting a chat room or forum (43.3 percent), and placing a long distance phone call (6 percent).
