The post below just gets me thinking about all the local beats there are – each one is a vertical in its own right. As people live their lives more and more online – any incredibly populace beat has potential to be a social network. Reporters need to figure out how large they want to grow a network that might help them in enterprise reporting, but they must also consider that by limiting a network, they are missing out on the smaller vertical social networking possibilities.

Via J.D. Lasica:

From the always perceptive Paul Gillin: Social Network Wars are Over.

If you’re sitting on the sidelines waiting for the market to pick
winners in the social network race, you can stand up now. Hitwise data
for 2007 shows that MySpace and Facebook together accounted for 88% of all visits to social network sites. The next closest competitor, Bebo , got a little more than 1% of the traffic.   

There simply is no more competition in the general-purpose social network market. Other social media winners include LinkedIn (which wasn’t included in the Hitwise data), YouTube and Flickr.
If you’re a big brand pursuing a broad strategy, you can safely place
your bets on these services. For the next year or two, the also-rans
will be busy finding buyers and merger partners.

Now is when
it really gets interesting, because now the action shifts to vertical
market sites. For many marketers, this is where the more interesting
opportunity lies. For example, in the area of health, there’s CarePages.com, Wellsphere, Patientslikeme, RevolutionHealth.com and iMedix. Seniors can choose from Elder Wisdom Circle, Grandparents.com, Eons, TeeBeeDee and Multiply. Mothers can sign up for Cafemom, MothersGroups.com, MomJunction and MothersClick, among others.

And the action isn’t limited to consumer markets. Sermo
is a social network for physicians, which now boasts more than 50,000
members. Doctors exchange information about serious medical issues and
review cases in real time. Pairup connects business travelers for peer advice, networking and assistance. There’s a list of more than 350 social networks here. 

And also this: Don’t
Let Tools Distract You.

I was
presenting a social media seminar to a public-relations agency recently
when the talk turned to uses of blogs. The people in the room were
excited  about
blogging’s potential and were eager to apply the technology to new
tasks.

I
cautioned them that they were asking the wrong question. The issue
isn’t what tool to use, but what problem to solve. Tool selection is
secondary. …