You may be on Facebook, but the money's in the Long Tail

I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'ve argued before that social networking should be a feature, not a destination, and that the one-size-fits-all model of Facebook and MySpace will eventually give way to a multitude of narrowly focused sites with social networking built in, such as the 220,000 niche networks hosted on the Ning platform.

It turns out that it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s not just the experience that\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s better on the smaller, more focused sites: the economics work better there, too. Yesterday MySpace\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s parent company, News Corp, released quarterly financial results and although traffic was up on MySpace, they\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'re having trouble making money. COO Peter Chernin said:

We remain incredibly optimistic about social media. But there are specific challenges 1) Tons of inventory. Lack of scarcity creates a liquidity challenge. Working on bringing big brands aboard. 2) People who are visiting social networks there for different reasons, different uses. Figuring out how to target. 3) What\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s the value of a \\\\\\\"friend\\\\\\\"? Trying to figure out new metrics to communicate with marketers.

Indeed, last I checked, display ads on MySpace were going for a rock bottom $0.13 CPM (price per thousand views). Meanwhile, although Ning isn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t disclosing its revenue across its entire network, I can give you a sense of it from my own robotics site hosted there, DIYDrones. The AdSense ads we run there (mostly accelerometer and other sensor parts, as per the example above) generate an average \\\\\\\"effective CPM\\\\\\\" (CPM after Google\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s cut, which can be as much as 50%) of $3.60. Before Google\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s cut, that\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s as high as $7.00.

So that\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s $0.13 on a general-purpose social network like MySpace and $7.00 on Long Tail social network like DIYDrones. Even with a more generous scenario--$0.50 on MySpace and $5.00 on a focused Ning site--the difference is still a factor of ten.

Sure, the traffic today is still mostly going to Facebook and MySpace. But as they struggle to target ads based on the faint signals of consumer behavior in a generic social network, the smart money is going to the niche sites, where laser-focused content and community makes targeting easy. The Long Tail of social networks isn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t just more satisfying if your community is actually about something, it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s richer, too.

人在扎堆，钱在长尾

我以前说过，社会化网络应该是一个特征，而不是目的，并且"大而全"的Facebook和MySpace模式终将会让步于具有社会化网络特征的专业站点，比如在Ning上安家的220,000个"缝隙网站"(niche networks)。

实践证明，更专注、更小的网站不仅体验更好，并且经济上也更具有优势。昨天(5月7日)MySpace的母公司，新闻集团发布了季报显示，虽然MySpace的流量一直在上升，但是盈利遇到了困难。其COO Peter Chernin说:

我们对社会化媒体保持绝对的乐观，但是也有一些挑战摆在面前: 1) 具有庞大的数据资料，但是缺乏能够制造流动性的资源。正在打造国外品牌。2)人们来社会化网络有很多目的和用途，怎样利用这些目的和用途 3)“朋友”的真正作用是什么？试图和市场人员做一个新的矩阵式的沟通

实际上，我最后一次调查的在MySpace上打广告的收益是$0.13CPM(千次访问价格),而Ning虽然没有公布它整个网络平台的收入，我可以通过我自己在Ning上建立的机器人网站,DIYDrones来给出一个大概的数据. 在上面的AdSense广告(大部分是加速器或者传感器件)产生的“有效CPM"(Google拿到自己的提成后，一般来说有50%之多)是$3.60.加上Google的提成，高达$7.00

比较一下吧，$0.13在MySpace这样的门户SNS,$7.00在DIYDrones这样的长尾SNS. 即使掐头去尾用个更普遍的估计，$0.50在MySpace，$5.00在Ning的专注网站，差距依然达到了10倍。

当然，流量大部分依然是Facebook或者MySpace的，但是他们试图向很难提炼出购买行为的大众用户来做广告。而由于专业网站更加专注，所以广告目标更加明确，钱来的更迅速。长尾上的SNS不仅能够更满足你在某一领域的交流需要，它们也更有钱