The future of the social networking sites is in niche online communities
These will be based on:

1. Interests or lifestyles eg diamondlounge.com
2. Solving problems or self help eg netmums.com
3. Business user needs to keep in touch with colleagues and contacts

People like the exclusiveness and the feeling they belong, they want to be part of these niche online communities. Normally it is the innovators and early adopters who are first to be part of these communities.

There are a lot of these small online networks. One of the most talked about is “SmallWorld” which was set up 2004. It is a private online community and is by invitation only. So if you know someone who has a smallworld membership, ask them to invite you, smallworld claim they are “the world’s leading private online community that captures an existing international network of people who are connected by three degrees of separation”. They argue that what makes the network unique and different to other social sites such as facebook is that the connections are authentic. People do not have loads and loads of friends who they never see or speak to in real life. Those trust and loyal ASW members who meet certain criteria can invite the limited number of their friends to their network. So if you want to be a invited, ask your friends or colleagues and if you are real nice, they might just send you an invite!!

If you are part of the elite networking scene, you may have heard of Diamond Lounge. Set up October 2007, it has a very selective membership process – more rigorous than that of any other online club. Prior to launch accepted only 100 members from 10,000 applications. It is an advertising free site and instead charge a monthly membership fee from £24.99 a month. The perk of Diamond Lounge is that it offers separate social and business rooms where members can build separate profiles. So you can meet your future business partner and life partner on the same site. Diamond Lounge also offers immediate communication options; live email, 4 party instant messaging and even video conferencing within the different online rooms.

So if you are looking for that special someone, check out Diamond Lounge.