物以类聚——这句名言切实放映了如今社交网站的发展趋势：越来越多的互联网用户开始倾向于小群体社交网站，寻找与自己志趣相投的朋友。

现在，Facebook或Twitter等社交网站总是充斥着各种令人毫无兴趣的大学聚会或朋友聚会相关照片等。因此，越来越多的网络用户开始倾向于更能有效分享彼此兴趣爱好的小群体社交网站。用户们可以在这类网站中分享自己喜欢的足球明星，谈论森林覆盖率问题，探讨严肃的医学研究，在各种小群体社交网站中实现“心灵的聚会”。

目前，社交网站领域总是大肆宣传3大主流社交网站——Twitter，Facebook和Orkut。然而随着用户需要的不断变化，如今的社交网站领域开始向“小群体社交网站”发展迈进。ApnaCircle.com的创办者兼首席执行官Yogesh Bansa认为，小群体社交网站作为普通社交网站的衍生产物会有某一侧重领域，譬如商业主题的社交网站可以为用户提供大量的专业意见和业内的多方位信息。小群体社交网站的出现反映了网络用户的不同需求。同时，社交媒介的不断发展也促进了小群体社交网站的诞生。

Apnacircle

Yogesh Bansal指出，在Facebook等热门社交网站中大约仅有10%的好友或者同学切实地进行了发帖活动，而其他大部分用户只是在消费现有的帖子。多数人其实并不知道发帖要讲些什么，毕竟人们并不是总有奇遇，因此大部分社交网站用户仅仅是针对那10%的发帖进行回复。

然而，小群体社交网站的风景却与此不同，用户们可以在其中切实地贡献和分享自己关注的话题。随着社交网站领域的不断变化，用户们对小群体社交网站的需求不言而喻。

据ComScore今年8月的社交媒介研究显示，从去年7月到今年7月的一年之间，ibibo.com的用户数量从156万2000上升至296万6000人；Shtyle.fm的用户数量从40万7000上升至155万，而Linkedln也从429万2000上升至443万2000。

Yogesh Bansal认为ApnaCircle等小群体平台可以为用户群体解决难题。与此同时还开创了一种专业品牌，为业内人士提供可能的答案。ApnaCircle等小群体平台可以为年轻专业人士提供寻找新工作的平台。

同时，Yogesh Bansal表示，ApnaCircle拥有180万印度用户。每个月网站的页面浏览量在1亿左右，在3个大陆上的10个国家设有办公室。

Rahul Razdan则认为小群体社交网站虽然有一定的局限性，却拥有较强的用户参与度。以ibibo.com为例，该社交游戏屏外为印度社交游戏用户提供了印度语社交游戏。这恰恰迎合了印度玩家的口味。毕竟印度人可能对意大利黑手党漠不关心，却十分热衷于印度本土的黑手党主题游戏。

小群体网站中充满着各种迎合特定群体的特色。譬如，印度用户可以在网站中看见熟悉的牛漫步于道路上的画面。“这就好比一出乡土剧，迎合了当地用户的口味。这正是很多国际社交网站无法实现的。”

很多普通社交网站的用户并不经常登录网站，或者发表帖子。然而在小群体社交网站，相同的兴趣爱好提升了用户的互动参与性。对于社交网站的未来趋势，Bansal认为小群体社交网站将于Facebook等普通社交网站和谐并存。小群体社交网站的价值在于其能满足特定用户群体的需求。现在社交网络领域中充斥着各种小群体社交网站，相信未来将出现更多的小群体社交网站迎合满足不同人群的不同兴趣和需求。另外，创新也是小群体社交网站未来发展的关键。对此，Bansal表示也十分注重新增社交网站功能以满足用户的不同需求。

然而，也有部分业内人士并不看好小群体社交网站。他们认为社交网站的精妙之处在于令用户结识更多的新朋友，了解不同的社区领域，这点小群体社交网站并无法实现。他们认为“每天遇见相同的人是一件十分无聊的事情。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Birds of a feather flock together– this age old adage appears to be more true in today’s internet age with more and more people logging on to niche social networking sites, seeking out like-minded people that share their interest, passion and concern over issues.

Checking out facebook or twitter updates about a colleague’s family outing, or the latest hangout of your friends somewhere in the US or being flooded by photographs of someone’s office party or status reports on photographs that interest you least, might not really be everyone’s cup of tea.

More and more were now gravitating towards niche social networking sites that allow people sharing similar interest, professional concerns or passion to network closely.
Sharing trivia about football heroes; getting serious over dwindling statistics on forest cover, discussing medical research published the latest journal, could all be shared and lived through the niche social networking sites, the internet platform for “meeting of minds”.

“There is lot of hype around the Big 3—Twitter, Facebook and Orkut. But with changing user expectations, and with the advancement in the social media, there is a new trend emerging called niche social networks”, an expert said.

“Niche networking is a step ahead to the general interests networking options. It actually directs you to the solutions for a specific interest. Say business and professional networking site which is a platform that helps you with the myriad solutions and information on multiple aspects of your profession and career”, said Yogesh Bansal, Founder & CEO, ApnaCircle.com

“The changing user expectations and the advancement in the social media, is giving birth to the various networking sites which are specifically responsible to cater the Niche target audience in terms of their specific interests, backgrounds, professions and age group”, he said.

“In popular social networking sites like facebook it is often found, that just 10 percent of all your friends or colleagues were really active or posting. The others are just consuming what is being posted”, said Rahul Razdan, President Product and Operations, ibibo.com.
“Many really do not know what to really post. You might not have been to that `exotic’ joint nor vacationed in an exotic place, so what do you really post about. Hence many just end up reading up what the few 10 per cent did”, he said.

But niche social networking is all together a different game, you end up contributing and reading about what really tugs your heart and mind.

“With the changing industry requirement, there is a definite demand for niche networking sites” said Bansal.

According to the ComScore Study on Social media (of August’ 2010), ibibo.com saw its user base jump from (July 2009) 15,62,000 users to (July 2010) 29,60,000 users. Shtyle.fm saw it jump from (July 2009) 4,07,000 users to July 2010 15,50,000 users while LinkedIn  (July 2009) 42,92,000 users went up in July 2010 to 44,32,000.

“A niche platform like ApnaCircle is helpful for the users as it helps them in finding the answer to their requirement. In addition, it also helps in creating a brand out of the professional and connects to the best possible options available in the market. ApnaCircle addresses the needs of the young professionals, who are looking for their very first job or switching careers or re-entering the job market after a sabbatical”, said Bansal.

“Today we have more than 1.8 million users in ndia…Today, we have 100 million pages viewed per month and our reach is spread across 10 countries on 3 continents with offices and local presence”, he said.

According to Rahul Razdan, though the niche network had a limited popular appeal, it was definitely more in terms of engagement of those logged to the niche networking site.
He said niche networking sites like ibibo.com actually were aspirational in some form. “Some could look for it to enhance one’s social esteem” “It was like a mini profile case “One could own a car virtually, plant something exotic on a virtual farm and have comments about the same posted. Comments like this is cool or feedback about something gives a boost. “It is similar to a case of a caller tune that in some way wants to tell the caller what you are all about”, he said.

Social gaming sites like ibibo.com also offer niche users like Indian social gaming users nuances that were Indian in context. “It actually catered to niche Indian taste”, he said.
An Indian gaming user really did not know much about Italian mafia but could relate to an India mafia game, he said.

They could look for some variations of a card game played in Diwali. The site offered games typical of an Indian scenario like cows on the road and even included recent news topics like adarsh scam involving a virtual building with the name where the user could have a stake in, he said.

“It is like a local soap opera where you could add features and twists and turns to suit local niche appeal”, he said, adding, a generic global social network could not really hope to address such issues.

“As a local social gaming platform we have worked. We have picked up traction big way”, he said.

Moreover, many times one might not really been updating one’s general social networking account or not be posting anything, but when it came to niche network, the common interest draws one to interact regulalry. What was niche now may really become mainstream later, he said.”I believe both niche as well as general purpose networking sites like facebook will coexist for some time to come. In the days to come, niche social networking will serve the requirement of specific groups, which will provide them better value proposition, said Bansal.

“Today, there are many niche networking sites that are existing. For example, there are sites in verticals like gaming, sports, career, etc. However, in the days to come we will see a range of networking sites coming up to cater different consumer interests and needs. Verticals like music, movies and healthcare will witness lot of movement in the future”, Bansal said.

“There is a possibility of further segmentation of these networking sites into different verticals & designations as well”, he said when talking about professional job sites.
Niche social working sites were however, aware, that innovation was the key word and adding features and revamping the sites to suit changing demands was imperative.
“We have already added new features to the site as per the changing needs of the users. We have already introduced advanced address book, redone the navigations and revamped the forum area. We strongly believe as an entry point, the mobile phones are going to play a pivotal role in the future. Keeping that in mind we have already introduced iPhone application and subsequently we will be launching Android and Blackberry applications as well”, said Bansal.

Echoing this view, Rahul says with mobile being the next big game changer, it was imperative to come out with innovations that suit the platform and sites like his were already working on the issue.

However, some choose to disagree on the niche networking getting more popular. “For people like us who attempt to target masses for our social awareness programme, niche social networking really does not help meet the target. For us it would be a general site that would work. Because the exciting part of internet at the end of the day is too meet new people and interact with a new set of community. It could get quite boring meeting the same people everyday”, says Sudeep working for an NGO.(Source：deccanherald)