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Social Media's Population |
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Social networking sites will enlist 230 million active members by the end of the year and will keep attracting new users until at least 2009, according to an analyst report. But investors are still wary--and for good reason, as long-term growth is by no means certain. Revenues from social-networking services will hit $965 million this year, swelling to $2.4 billion by 2012.
Growth in the membership of social-networking sites varies dramatically by region, Asia Pacific will account for 35% of global social networking users by the end of this year, followed by Europe, the Middle East and Africa with 28%, North America 25, and the Caribbean and Latin America 12%. Parks Associates found that 80% of broadband users aged 18-25 use social networking sites on a monthly basis, but monetising these users is proving to be difficult even for leaders such as MySpace.
72% of social networking users would stop using a site if they were required to pay a monthly fee of as little as $2. Advertising looks like the obvious alternative, but the research suggests that nearly 40% of respondents would stop visiting a social networking site if it contained too many ads.
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