WOW WOW - Facebook the brand is strong, however facebook's product "the social network" is actually starting to see a decline in its life cycle within the countries that it initially started out in! see:http://www.businessinsider.com. Not only this, but Facebooks strategic directive is to be at the forefront of semantic, paving the way as a central hub for people's data. This is how they intend to move forward, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web. This is why they are putting see more in place the API integration tools and likes features etc. By continuing to integrate more Facebook functionality into our networks, we loose the ability to be challengers as social networks ourselves. We need to invest in the back-end infrastructure to support our Communities and to market our sites. Essentially do what Zuckerberg did himself. In order for any social network to sustain in our diverse and rapidly changing environment, we have to be clear on who our customer is and what our product delivers. There is a huge untapped market for "niche" social networks. People are intelligent and we have to credit them as such - Facebook is not the beginning and end of all social networks unless we make it so. As developers, we just need to ensure that the products we deliver to the market meet the needs of our customers. We need to market the social network and execute the long term strategy!!! This is honestly the only thing that divides Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and the others from a new entrants to the market. Rapid growth, or long-term sustainability.

If anyone would like internet marketing advice on how to grow their social networks, feel free to contact me on zfowke@internetmarketingconsultancy.org.uk.

Facebook is not the end!