Social web bigger than porn, gambling and pills

by mtippett | January 27, 2009 at 10:59 am

1795 views | 15 Recommendations | 17 comments

A little more conversation, a little less action please. Internet business types often joke that if you really want to make some scratch you should just set up a porn site. Though it is sometimes tempting to believe that pandering to the porn crowd is a recipe for a quick return, it looks like the social web is displacing adult destinations as a surefire traffic play. According to hitwise:

Last week we provided the BBC with some interesting data illustrating how UK Internet visits to Social Networks and Forums have overtaken Adult websites. As the chart below illustrates, social networks overtook last October and have remained ahead since.

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Steffanie Baseley

at 13:21 on January 27th, 2009

“Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind.”
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

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Paschen

at 13:23 on January 27th, 2009

I am glad to read this. Makes Humanity a little less shallow.

BHOLD

at 13:32 on January 27th, 2009

The red pill, nor the blue

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Podknox

at 14:06 on January 27th, 2009

I doubt it's as profitable as online gaming.....

eastvanray

at 14:12 on January 27th, 2009

Online money laundering?

jerdavis

at 14:25 on January 27th, 2009

How about the green pill? Glad you liked my shot! :)

- Jer

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Clydepossum (not verified)

at 15:54 on January 27th, 2009

It took Amazon.com how long to become profitable?

Facebook, like other social networking sites (dogster, MySpace, etc.) is a fantastic idea for a business where people provide the content and generate the product. Very little overhead in paying writers or artists to come up with original content that people will pay to see or read. I typically refuse to participate in those types of sites because the site owner gets the money from ads or other revenue building means from MY ideas and/art. Why should I post pictures on Facebook or Dogster when I don't get any of the double-click money :)

sara star

at 15:55 on January 27th, 2009

Pretty pills.

caseorganic

at 16:07 on January 27th, 2009

Diagrams from a question my friend had on the future of digital media -- specifically television. I spoke on a panel at a conference at MIT called the Futures of Entertainment 3 about this issue. The video is here, along with a lot of other videos from the conference.

http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/1609-span-classhighlightfuturesspan-of-entertainment-3---session-3-social-media

I am a Cyborg Anthropologist and I study how the online space is changing how we interact. There's more information on Cyborg Anthropology as well as books and resources about it here: http://oakhazelnut.com/2008/11/12/robots-robots-everywhere-a-field-guide-to-cyborg-anthropology/

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sara star

at 18:49 on January 27th, 2009

Great site, and forward thinking.

Divine Harvester ™

at 20:24 on January 27th, 2009

Daddy, what does regret mean?
Well son, the funny thing about regret is...
It's better to regret something you have done,
Than to regret something you haven't done...

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thatguygil

at 21:43 on January 27th, 2009

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markpollard

at 01:03 on January 28th, 2009

Interesting. Good to hear that something else other than porn is driving innovation! Finally :)

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Reine__0

at 14:37 on January 29th, 2009

http://www.betterbettingonline.com

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Eli22 (not verified)

at 06:30 on February 19th, 2009

Finally, something got bigger then porn on the Web!

eastvanray

at 14:09 on February 19th, 2009

Last I checked social networks were struggling to make profits while pornographers were lighting Cohibas with 100 Euro notes on their 150 foot cabin cruisers in the Mediterranian. It's not about eyeballs: it's about dollars.