The social networking phenomenon has hit critical mass. Myspace and some of the other major social networking sites have been enormously successful because they don’t fill a specific niche. They basically target everyone on the entire internet. It’s the same kind of monopoly that eBay has on the online auction market. People join because there’s already an established user base in the tens of millions, rather than joining some startup with 15 users.
But the internet is a funny thing. Niche marketing is king, because there’s no overhead to targeting a relatively small audience. In fact it’s much easier to target a smaller audience because you can get a lot more specific with keyword targeting, SEM, PPC, affiliate campaigns, etc.
So of course, niche social networking sites have started popping up all over. Many have just copied the myspace formula, letting users setup profile pages, upload pics, post messages on each others profiles, make friends, and so on.
My favorite example of this type of site has to be Bowlspace.com. It’s basically myspace for bowlers. It’s a pretty good idea if you think about it. These guys (and girls) probably don’t want to setup a myspace profile, just to get inundated with spam about "Winning a PS3" or finding out that these girls who "really want to get to know them" really just want them to sign up at their adult website.
So bowlspace lets bowlers congregate on a social networking site. They can share their averages, tell bowling stories on their blogs that would only be remotely interesting to other bowlers, and do general bowler-y stuff. It must be working, because they’re just about to hit 10,000 members.
Currently, they’re running a contest where users submit videos of their best bowling-celebration-dance. What a brilliant way to solicit hilarious viral videos for their site.
It just goes to show, it’s all in how you market a site that can make a silly idea like bowlspace into a gold mine.
