Facebook, Faceparty, Bebo – social networking websites

With the news that Facebook might seek a horrendously large buyout in the future…

And that Facebook is facing a lawsuit from another social networker…

I’m wondering stuff.

Things like:

Can the growth in networking/social websites be sustained?

And:
Whatever happened to email and Messenger, how did they become ‘unfashionable’?

And:
How long before the market (consumer) reaches saturation point?

And:
Whatever happened to email and Messenger, how did they become ‘unfashionable’?

And:
Is there a natural age bar to using social network websites?

And:
Whatever happened to email and Messenger, how did they become ‘unfashionable’?

Sigh.

Yes.

I know I’ve repeated the question.

But that’s rather the point.

We have NNTP newsgroups (once considered the mutt’s nuts); individual email (also touted as the dog’s danglers); email mailing lists (an extension of email); websites (text/graphical and searchable); blogs (ditto but interactive too)…

So are social networks really ‘something new’?

Or are they merely a minute functional extension of ‘all of the above’?

Did Web 2.0 begin with blogging and will it end with social networking?

Which raises the question – what are social networking websites for?

Faceparty – one of the earliest social networking websites – has been nicknamed (perhaps unfairly) ‘find-a-shag’.

Certainly Faceparty has an ‘adult’ section to its content.

Is this perhaps what we mean?

Are the words ‘social networking websites’ really just a euphemism for ‘find-a-shag’?

I’m not being snobbish about this.

I’m just trying to understand the…

Need, I suppose.

Yes.

I’m just trying to understand the need.