The Return to Sociability

You can stop wringing your hands over the “waning interest in social networks.” After a couple of months of decline that triggered gigabytes of speculation, the flagship sites in the category came back strong in March. Some argued that Facebook, for instance, had peaked as its meteoric rise f the past 18 months leveled off, but after 32.4 million uniques in February, the site grew to 35.5 uniques in March, according to comScore. MySpace, also too often discussed as a has-been, spiked to 72.7 million after three months in the 68 million user level. In fact, almost all social media enjoyed some kind of a come back as the winter wound down. Blog traffic at Blogger.com and Six Apart properties expanded their audience as well. Analyzing social media traffic patterns is a chancy exercise this early in the game. Given the accelerated growth in the category, it has been hard to detect any seasonal influences (school being in or out, etc) on activity at these sites. The long terms threat to social media is not boredom; it plugs into a basic human need that perpetually refreshes itself. The real threat is that the functions of social network will become baked into Web browsers, email clients and operating systems. The end game for social networks is not that one or two dominate the scene but that it becomes a feature, not a brand.