MySpace and Facebook Positioned to Crush Classmates.com

Last April, I posed the question, "Will MySpace Kill Classmates.com?" on Technology Evangelist, and included the following comment:

"While Classmates has filled an interesting niche for years, it looks like MySpace's fast growing - and potentially larger already - network of users connected through interests, bands, friends of friends, and schools, could post a real threat to Classmates."

So, what has nine months shown? That Myspace (in blue) has continued to grow while Classmates (in red) has not:

Of course, MySpace's audience is using MySpace for much more than planning reunions, so the comparison isn't entirely fair. Or is it? As I see it, whoever builds the largest network of people associated by school and class will be best positioned to enable reunion organizing. While few, if any, people join MySpace today for reunion planning, the value of the network generated is obvious. A MySpace side effect is crushing Classmates.com's pure-play.

The middle line on the graph represents Facebook(in green), who is also building high-school and college class networks at an extraordinarily fast pace. Anecdotally, Facebook seems to be the preferred networking site for college students today, which would make it the preferred reunion organizing site 5 and 10 years from now.

It's not all that different from the rationale behind Ebay's purchase and integration of PayPal. Ebay managed to build the largest network of buyers and sellers on the Internet, making the addition of tools enabling transactions between those two groups an obvious complementary service.

Required fields marked with: *
Name*:

Email Address*:

URL:
Remember personal info?

Comments*:

HTML Tags you can use in your posts:
<b>Bold</b> = Bold
<i>Italicized</i> = Italicized
<a href="http://www.othersite.com">Link to Other Site</a> = Link to Other Site

Please keep comments on-topic. Contact authors or other commenters
directly for off-topic conversations.

Notify me of future comments via e-mail

Technology Evangelist Digest - Free Newsletter

Sign up for the free Technology Evangelist Digest to receive daily updates, editorials, and practical advice on emerging technology trends in hardware, software, webware, marketing and beyond.

Technology Evangelist Digest will keep you up to date on the technology trends that will help make you more productive and efficient both in business and your personal life.

Let's face it: If you made it to this line, you must have found something valuable on this page, right? Think about how cool it would be to have something free and interesting to read every day from Technology Evangelist by signing up today.

1. Fill in your email below,
2. Then click on the confirmation email you receive.
3. That's it. Your first Technology Evangelist Digest will arrive within 24 hours.