Social Networking: Sites You Need to Know

Social networking is now "just another feature" of many sites - we're coming to expect sites to be SNS-enabled.

At this point, you're probably familiar with - MySpace, Facebook, Classmates.com, even Friendster - as there are hundreds of emergent players, what are sites you need to pay attention to

Cyworld

This South Korean social network is emerging as a strong model for the future of social networks. According to wikipedia, , over 25 percent of the South Korean population has a Cyworld account, with up to 90 percent of South Koreans in their 20's having an account., Cyworld is truly cutting edge; participants in this game-like social network can micropay for clothes, furniture and accessories. Speaking to users of the service, it is clear that Cyworld is nothing short of a phenomenon.

Bebo
Bebo has found a strong international audience, particularly in the UK. Bebo is an open, non-niche network, built on similar concepts as MySpace. Indeed, the market can't support many of these, but Bebo has found validity in sheer numbers. If your social network can find an audience - particularly one that will market on your behalf, users will come. Bebo is an emergent force - one that stands to make significant inroads.

Hi5
Hi5 is the prominent SNS brand in India. Indeed, as India is a tech center, this brand reaches far beyond the Subcontinent - the site is increasingly popular in the EU, as users keep in touch with extended families. If Hi5 can learn from the popular features of Myspace, this brand has a very promising future in a very interesting market.

Faceparty
This long-established UK-based SNS service isn't as popular as Bebo and Myspace have cut deeply into Faceparty's market. Regardless, Faceparty is notable as that it has monetized its user base. Faceparty has the ability to see who is viewing your profile, advanced search, and filtering. There is much to be learned from Faceparty's successes and failures.

XuQa
XuQa represents the other end of the spectrum in college networking - it is purposefully racy, full of game-like features - an anti-Facebook. XuQa is making social networking a game-like experience actually brings people back and it wouldn’t be surprising if Facebook integrates similar features.

Essentially, companies are building social-enabled sites around content areas - In this context, social networking adds the logical next layer to content-driven resources. This is an extremely important trend - in the future, all of our content sites will have social networking characteristics.

Social networking is absolutely here to stay - this is not simply a "phenomenon".

The young users of these tools are situating their entire formative internet experience around them and this "phenomenon" is not bound by geography or culture or language - everyone is welcome to join a social networking website and hundreds of millions of people have done so. Put in context, we're really only at the beginning of "social networking" - these sites, along will shape the future of our online social networking experience.