Social networthing

Social networking market is buzzing with new companies registering everyday. Currently there are hundreds of networking sites available. Ranging from sites for general public to sites specific to mothers and aged people. Myspace is the leader with 75% to 80% market share. In september Myspace attracted more than 60 million visitors. Facebook is the second with 10% market share.



Revenue of social networking companies is growing with the increase in number of visitors. Overall, Revenue of social networking sites is expected to reach $965 million by the end of 2007 and is estimated to touch $2.4 billion by 2012. Companies like google and News Corp have sensed the opportunity early in the market and have acquired companies like youtube and Myspace. Corporations and venture capitalists who dont want to miss out opportunity of investing in next Google or Microsoft are currently investing heavily in social networking companies that own sites or develop technologies useful to these sites.



Individual investors are waiting for the opportunity. Their turn is expected to come in next couple of months. Social networking companies are about to hit the stock market in near future. A segment of investors are having second thoughts to invest in these companies as they fear a bubble similar to dot com bubble few years ago.

One of the intial players in social networking space known as classmates.com has filed for an IPO. Observers of socialnetworking market are keenly waiting for its listing. Results of Classmates IPO will serve as a barometer to estimate worth of social networking companies.



In India, online population is currently believed to be 38 million and is estimated to reach 100 million by 2008. Social networking site 'Orkut' is estimated to have around six million users in India according some analysts.





Note: All figures quoted here are from IT news websites.