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# Social networking's gold rush
- URL: https://werd.io/social-networkings-gold-rush/
- Published: 2006-05-23T11:58:37.000Z
- Updated: 2025-06-12T11:01:21.000Z
- Author: Ben Werdmuller
- Tags: General, #ben-684a32da145d7d001be71dae, #Migrated-1749693130536, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-06-11 21:52

Business Week has [an article from a couple of days ago](http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2006/tc20060419%5F514268.htm) about the masses of investment money being poured into social networking systems in the wake of Myspace's sale (and we all know what I think about *[that](http://elgg.net/bwerdmuller/weblog/14995.html)*). A piece of Facebook costs a mean $25 million; Bebo (which for me is indistinguishable from Myspace) recently raised $15 million in investment.

What's the purpose of all these sites springing up? This just about covers it:

> "We think Facebook has a unique opportunity to reach a crucial demographic at a key point in their lives. And when a site has this much scale and brand recognition, advertisers will come," said David Sze, a general partner at Greylock.

It's still all about networking as a delivery mechanism for advertising.

The more fiscally minded of you might be wondering how to invest in Elgg, which is the only fully-featured standalone social networking system that you can install on your own servers (and one that more and more universities and businesses alike are turning to). The answer is this: [join the development community](http://elgg.org/developers.php) (don't worry, there's no buy-in to join the table). Lend your ideas and your talent, because we're building a system for the community, and the whole community should benefit.

We could have plastered Elgg.net with ads, kept the software closed, sold it on a per-head basis and harnessed it for market research; we would have made a fortune. But we didn't, and for this reason, which we've repeated over and over again: your eportfolio is *your* digital identity, under your control. Your installation is *your* learning landscape system, under your control and featured to your specifications. Pick it up, do what you like with it; it's as simple as that.

([Via Om Malik.](http://gigaom.com/2006/05/22/too-many-social-networks/))