http://thoughtlava.typepad.com/mindflow/2008/08/social-network-taxonomy.html

You know, flixster is not the only source for new movie reviews and movie lists. Just like the others you listed are not the only ones in that niche either. One comes along, another improves the niche – thats what seems to be happening.

i’d say you could collapse everything down to these 2 classifications:

• horizontal: targets a wide variety of features that pertain to a broad social networking demographic

• vertical: targets a specific set of features that pertain to a niche-focused social networking demographic

there’s probably room for more than one horizontal — altho it might be an uphill climb if there’s already a MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn for the broad demographic you’re going after (and yes, i’d still call LinkedIn a horizontal, rather than a niche vertical).

however, i’d agree the future is likely full of many, many vertical SNS plays that all rely on feature set highly integrated with the niche demographic & their native activities.

a possible 3rd category is a SNS tool that would provide visibility / integration across multiple SNS services — if you believe a “long tail” of niche verticals will come into play, then such a service could be useful. while i don’t know if PeopleAggregator (or ProfileLinker, or UpScoop) are there yet, feels like something could be interesting there… hint, hint.

People always try to leverage their social network for a purpose, ranging from finding a dog-sitter, a restaurant, a soul mate, a job or a job candidate.

In the off-line world we believed “it’s not what you know but who you know!” WIth the www our social networks have grown exponentially: I have 950 LinkedIn connections, and 167,500 people are only 2 degrees away from me. A lot of merely weak ties so to speak.

How do you extract “strength from weak ties”?

It’s all about social capital and who you ask to propagate your request for help. Ask an easy favor from a close friend and success is guaranteed – ask a complex question to bunch of mere acquaintances, and you may find that you do not have enough social capital with them to get your request evaluated and propagated.

Social commerce means adding a cash thank-you payment / reward to your request, and it’s amazing how this can convert your social network into a discriminating but motivated search party on your behalf.

hans@h3.com

my take is the the ‘intertia only’ networks like myspc and facebk are done; the concept of ‘shared interest’ social networking is going to explode…lots of early entrants and it’s about ‘getting something done’ or ‘facilitating’ something you do already but the SISN makes it ‘easier’…more convenient.

It’s a morph of the ‘news groups’ concept with silo search sites…

$0.02

Shazz