Community Goldrush is Over

The last years we underwent the amazing growth of web communities up to previously unimaginable sizes. Literally tenth of million of people collaborate in a single web community or social network and endow their personal content to give the cloud its worth. The success of the large communities is followed by a large number of copycats all over the world trying to participate in the business model. This is what I call the goldrush of the communities.

It never was actually a goldrush but simply a rush. The gold is still missing. Only a handfull of these communities earns profit. Most of them promise profit for the near future and proof by the pure number of members. But the business model to get revenue by advertising only is somewhat controversial. Payed services exist in the minority. People participate on the Web 2.0 for free. Most communities live on the hope to exploit the huge numbers they deal with every day "soon".

For now, there seems to be no place for new communities. The claims are made. The market will consolidate in the next few years and only the largest networks will survive, maybe some niche communities also. If you think about new business you should not try out another social network.

This doesn't mean there is no place for new business in the network domain. Since the huge social networks become more and more platforms for services rather than services by itself the room is open to establish exactly that: services for communities. If you know anything special and how to do it in the internet do it embedable, prepare your service for high traffic and write apps and gadgets for the major networking platforms.

The areas of interest are mainly:

- mobile devices
- location based services
- micro shops
- embeddable games
- multimedia delivery

The goldrush today is not for communities but for services to support communities with valuable features.