MySpace Competitors Start to Emerge

[mandy]

Article on new competitors trying to take a piece of the MySpace pie. 

  It's only natural for companies large and small to want to capture some of the social-networking magic of MySpace.com, a Web site that has risen out of nowhere to become the Internet's second busiest by successfully figuring out what teens and young adults want.

AOL joined the pack this month with its own take on social networking, a loose term for services that help users expand their circles of friends by exploiting existing connections, rather than meeting randomly or by keyword matches alone...

Others, mostly startups, are hoping to become the next-generation MySpace, offering more-robust, easier-to-use tools or specialized features for niches.

CollectiveX Inc. launched this month as a network for professionals and other pre-organized groups. Famoodle started in April as a MySpace for families. Relative newcomers Tagged Inc. and Varsity Media Group Inc.'s Varsity World are billing themselves as safe havens for teens.

full article: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/tech/D8HO..._tech_down&chan=tc

A related article asks whether MySpace is losing its appeal to teens and looks at new competitors including BeBo, Buzznet.com, Friendsorenemies.com, and TagWorld.com

When it became all the rage to have a MySpace page, Luly Larios joined the social networking Web site. She rarely posts on her MySpace page, though. Instead, the high school sophomore logs on to Bebo.com, a site for high school and college students. The interface is simple, the graphics are better, and she finds more of her friends there.

MySpace's notoriety could be a turnoff for young people who are looking for an online community of their own, said Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher for the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Lenhart has studied teens' online behavior since the late 1990s. "Teens will go where their friends go," she said.

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/AJELU7Gv...Year.xhtml