Social Networking Sites

Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn.


Listed above are four sites that have been an integral part of the growth of social networking. From my observations I describe each as follows:


Myspace
- Catalyst of Facebook and most other social networking sites
- Younger audience
- Allows customization of personal page
- Ability to add music on page
- Ability to have a blog portion to page


Facebook
- Originally intended use only for college students
- Perceived as more sophisticated version of Myspace
- Uniform, non-customization of personal page
- Older audience
- Ability to categorize friends


Twitter
- Less cluttered
- More focused on communication
- 140 Character limit provides an easily legible status update
- Celebrities tend to use Twitter to update their daily activities over Facebook or Myspace
- Businesses use Twitter to directly communicate to customers


LinkedIn
- Used highly by corporations as hiring tool
- Majority of users are industry professionals
- Profiles are set up as Resumes for users
- No photo albums 
- Distinguished from other social networking sites instead as "professional networking"


As we can see, they mostly all serve a different audience/target. I don't see one taking over the other as they each have their own competitive advantages.