If One is the loneliest number that you have every heard……..we have not started to see the last of the social network explosion. When your city can hold a quilting convention (no offense to quilters) then you know that there are distinct market segments for everything and anything. We like to belong to something…..anything. Wrap yourself in national pride, the Mets, Yankees, Punk, Goth, low-riders, shaved heads, tattoos, Opera…….we all belong to many markets. The list is so long that marketers and social network entrepreneurs have not dreamed up all of the ways that we can be lumped together.

The social network explosion has just had the fuse lit…..and it is a very very very long fuse.

http://www.latinspace.com

According to a report today on Easier.com, it seems that the popularity of these sites may be under threat according to research commissioned by Motorpoint, the UK’s largest car supermarket, whose website generates a large proportion of the retailer’s new and used car sales, and which was named as the most visited out of all the automotive dealers in the UK last year.

The online consumer study of over 5,500 respondents revealed that a staggering 58% of those polled, claimed that they do not use these sites, coming ahead of 27% who go online to re-kindle old friendships, and 20% who want to stay in touch with existing friends. This suggests that factors including the latest legal action surrounding the creators of Facebook, and the clampdown by companies to stop their employees from visiting this type of facility during worktime, have begun to deter many from joining the millions who have already created their own online personal site, and signalling an uncertain future for the Internet communities.

Why do I feel like a big company like Disney purchasing Club Penguin will ruin the user experience?

I think I may jump ship to my favorite new virtual world site http://www.citypixel.com
for the time being.