I am researching social networking market and would like some startup information:

1) What is the market size for social networking ? Both US and global if possible.
2) Who are the major players (top 10 or more), what is their strategic
positioning, their market share? How do they make money (or plan to)?
Any noteworthy mergers and acquisitions recently?
3) Pointers to experts, labs (industry/academia) where major research
is being conducted in social networks.
Thank you.

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Clarification of Question by adbuy-ga on 26 May 2004 05:06 PDT

I am interested only in businesses that use internet based systems for
the purposes of social networking. Their purpose may be for connecting
friends, dating, business  (jobs, sales, etc). Some examples are
friendster, visiblepath, orkut, etc. I would like a more through
survey.

Are you asking about matching personalities for dating purposes?
Social networking is a part of almost all human activities, so you
need to help the researcher set some limits.  Neil

I remember there was a solid paper by one of the Wharton professors
with extensive research on the social networking market (i.e. size,
mrkt opportunity, key players, etc). The paper was published on the
Knowledge@Wharton portal - http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/