Where are social networks going?

Ben explained that "Why advertising won’t work for a social network" in his post.

And PRBlogging said "Monetizing MySpace shouldn’t be hard" and "MySpace is a brand that is bigger than Fox".

I think this is very interesting topic and here is my comment on Ben's post:

Ben raised an very interesting topic.

Here is my 2 cents.

Advertising is about impression. This is true for website and TV. Impression itself can not directly guarantee a sale but it does increase the odd. Therefore, any platform that can generate impressions has some value. So popular site has a value, popular TV channel has value…

Then the question become how much it worth when a site has this much viewers. This is a tricky question especially for social website.

I think social website has more adversiting value than tradition media(TV, web1.0) since it has another dimension of marketing channel — word of mouth.

Basially, I think internet itself now is a big social community.