I went to the Intellect Annual dinner on Thursday and we had a very interesting discussion on our table about how quickly fashions change in this 'Web 2.0' world. One of the guests (eminent, in his 60s, but I won't name him) said that he had just got used to "young people" talking about Myspace but now "young" people were telling him this was old fashioned and that Facebook was the place to be.
Indeed. Figures issued by Hitwise this week show that Facebook is the fastest growing social networking site in the UK with a 13% market share (still behind Myspace and Bebo on c34%).
Facebook is growing at 3% per day. Also this week, Facebook announced partnership agreements with 70 companies, such as Microsoft, with the aim of becoming a "Social Utility" - providing all the tools "young" people need.
The excellent MarketClusters newsletter quotes a "young" person on GigaOM explaining that "MySpace was a good 'gateway drug' to social sites, but Facebook is now 'my drug of choice'". Oh how really old that makes me feel!
Now, I've used the term "young people" deliberately. It would appear from the above, and my dinner conversation, that it's only "young people" that are internet groupies.
But in another Hitwise press release this week (strangely not mentioned on MarketClusters) it appears that Silver Surfers - those aged over 55 - are set to overtake 35-44 year olds as the largest online group. Silver surfers now represent 22% of all UK internet site visitors - up 54% since 2005 and up 40% since 2006. Silver Surfers are more likely to visit Travel, Money and News websites than any other group. Cruise websites receive 48% of their traffic from Silver Surfers. Family, Stocks & Shares, E-greetings, Yachting & Boating sites all record more hits from Silver Surfers than other groups.
So why is it that there isn't a social networking site specifically for Silver Surfers? Is it because the concept just doesn't work for that age group? Or is it just that nobody has ever thought of it?
Maybe I should fill the vacuum and set one up!