Social networking -- still hot, or suddenly passé?

Media marketing honchos in New York were told that social networking sites like MySpace are where the action is; at the same time, the SF Chronicle posted a piece that suggests they may already have peaked. The Chroncile's piece includes this telling remark, which it used as a pull quote on the front page:

Caro kept an online cat diary for six months and hooked up her cats with about 50 friends each. "At that point, I thought, 'Who cares?'" she said. "Who cares if my cats have friends?"

They're talking about Catster (a companion site to Dogster, which is the actual company) where, at last count, there were 92,997 cats registered, most with one or more pictures, and many with blogs. Even my cat has a blog on Catster.

I am a member of a single social networking site, tribe.net, and I hardly ever visit that. To tell you the truth, most of the people I know don't need a site like tribe or MySpace to post their pictures and journal -- they just have their own websites, and most of them have their own domains. That's what I look at.

Update: Milagrito responds:

Daddy, I always knew you were jealous because my blog is better than yours, but I can't believe you gave space in your column to that absurd woman who thinks her cats don't need friends. Cats not only need friends, they need a venue for their art-- photographic, cinematic or literary. Ok, so it's only cat art, you elitist. At least it's clean.

Another virtue of Catster is that you have a ready-made, believable avatar. I mean, you can go on some networking site and pretend to be a foot taller, twenty pounds lighter, rich, trendy and an insatiable slut, or you can log onto Catster as, well, me. I tell the story of my blossoming internet identity in my entry Love Song, which incidentally details the love affair with my sister (for those of Daddy's readers who like the smutty stuff).

catster, blogging, social networking, tribe