Published on Read/Write Web at 1:08 AM

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Social Networking: Time For A Silver Bullet

MySpace is booming in popularity; Facebook is gracing the headlines again; Bebo is growing incredibly; Tribe relaunched; Cyworld, Hive7 and SecondLife are nothing short of a phenomenon; LinkedIn is becoming 'People Search'; ITToolbox relaunched with a host of social networking features; Friendster is now refueling itself to enter the market again. Put simply, social networking is hot and there is plenty of money and action in the SNS space to prove it.

Short History of Social Networks

Social Networks have a history almost as long as RSS. Aspects of social networks have long been present in dating services such as Match and Classmates. The notion of social networking first formally appeared on the Internet in the late 1990s, with services like FireFly, eGroups/OneList, ICQ and Evite - which allowed groups of people to coordinate certain kinds of interaction. 

It was not until 2003 that social networks became truly mainstream - with the advent of Friendster. Shortly thereafter, there was a wave of social networks. Adopting small-world theory, services like Tribe, Orkut, LinkedIn and Spoke emerged - allowing users to better organize and expand their recreational and business networks.

Published on Read/Write Web at 1:08 AM

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