I like the true concept of social networking, but I think they have a limited long-term commercial value to advertisers. My experience of "social" sites in the past, forums aside, is that when something like this gets high-profile, marketeers and commercial peeps move in and very often, as a result, social users tend to move on to someplace else. Of course a lot of this effect can be countered with careful moderation but that's not always possible on a large site, so you end up with a virtual version of the Italian Job ad infinitum: new sites coming up, old sites losing popularity, etc etc. I guess if you like the chase, it can work long term, and I am sure there are short-term gains, but I think personally there are better, more durable ways to spend one's time when it comes to marketing.
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