Yahoo! researcher Danah Boyd has a great research paper on MySpace, geekily entitled, "Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace." An excerpt from the paper:

What we're seeing right now is a cultural shift due to the introduction of a new medium and the emergence of greater restrictions on youth mobility and access. The long-term implications of this are unclear. Regardless of what will come, youth are doing what they've always done - repurposing new mediums in order to learn about social culture.

But what happens when MySpace is no longer a new medium? The site offers little of value aside from being a social venue; even then, it is not a social venue like Starbucks, where much value is added by the company through services like Internet connectivity, fancy coffee and overpriced food, nice music, and a clean environment. When the MySpace generation grows up, they're going to want something of value, and the next generation of teens won't find MySpace to be interesting -- they'll find it to be a fad worth rebelling against. In the song, "Encore," the father of hip-hop, Dr. Dre, offers some key insight into fads:

You a fad, that means your something that we already had
But once you're gone, you don't come back, too bad

But is the case for all of social networking? I don't think so. If you recall, MySpace originally started out as a service to help musicians gain a web presence and network with each other. There is still this element to it, and it still adds legitimate value on this front.

The point of this whole post: social networking needs to be vertical. MySpace started as a vertical social network, but, as most successsful vertical ventures do, it eventually went horizontal. In my opinion, it did this far too early. But I think it's a safe bet that we can expect more vertical social networks, as that is where real value can be added -- not just fads.

GenuineVC.com, a cool blog save the undersized font, has a nice post on vertical social networks that's worth checking out.

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