now in the final stages of beta testing.
In a nonpublic test of the site over the summer by about 1,000 recruited participants, executives learned that these users wanted to blog; now, every user with a profile can, Ms. Reppen said. Through the beta test, which is now open to new members, Nick is learning that parents want spaces to sell their crafts, a separate Christian home-schooling discussion and bigger type on the Web site. Local discussion boards will also be added, as will user-generated video.
They also quote a Nissan marketing executive, who says that "community sites are one of the big phenomenon happening on line this year."
There is a big shift going on.
It's startling to realize that my three year toddler is almost the same age as Myspace and older than Facebook. In just a few short years they've come to dominate much of the online world, especially with under-25 users. The kind of independent blogs that dominate a sites like Livejournal and Blogspot don't have the web of cross-connections--what I called the "folksonomic density"--of the new social networking sites. It seems appropriate that Myspace was founded by spammers: who knows more about sucking people in?
The question: will the net have room for independent niche sites? Myspace is changing its architecture to disable key linking features of third-party embedded plug-ins like the from the popular video site Youtube. The big search sites also want a piece of this market--new features on Yahoo local and the geotagged maps on Yahoo's Flickr are impressive). It all reminds me some of the debates about local food co-ops versus enlightened supermarkets: is it a good thing that organic produce and soymilk can be purchased at the local Acme, even if that cuts into the independent co-op's business? Don't we want everyone to have access to everything? In the end, philosophy won't settle this argument.
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