Lots of Social Networks, No Business Plans
GigaOm did a post on Friday about the rise of HoffSpace, a new social network for fans of David Hasselhoff. Seriously.
GigaOm took HoffSpace to be the signal that the social networking bubble is upon us and will soon pop like the housing bubble. The problem is that although there are thousands of social networking sites out there, almost none has a serious and viable business model. Even Facebook doesn’t have a clue how to make money.
The popular wisdom of the moment is that social networking will soon stop being a standalone business, and will simply become a tool that is used by already established and successful businesses. Maybe someone will prove that wrong by figuring out a way to make money from social networking, but nobody has yet.