[barcodeunit]

As you all know, this niche is on its way down. All the big players are losing traffic by the day, and even the new players are finding it difficult to grow.

Here are my top reasons on why this niche is dying :

1) Facebook
Facebook's traffic is on the rise, and MySpace's traffic is on the decline. It's projected by the end of this year, Facebook will officially have more traffic and overall usage than MySpace. However, i truly believe that this is the case NOW. For instance, many of my friends are no longer on MySpace - they have all switched to Facebook. Why? Facebook is simply easier to use. In my opinion, the death of MySpace and rise of Facebook started when too many individuals started fake profiles, and started spamming like hell. This is when people started joining facebook and realized how easy and basic it is and eventually the word spread. Overall, when MySpace loses traffic, so do we.

2) Profile 2.0
Whether you like it or not, Profile 2.0 is killing our niche. First and foremost, we cannot drive any traffic through a corner tag or even a text link for that matter. Furthermore, if a user has Profile 2.0 installed for 3 months, the user is NOT allowed to switch back to 1.0, which means we will NEVER get a hit from that user's profile. We are feelings the effects of this already. This will gradually kill our traffic over time.

3) MySpace Applications
As soon as the apps were released on MySpace, many sites were hit hard - mainly the resource sites that specialized in MySpace comments/graphics. Many users, instead of leaving myspace to visit a resource site, spent most of their free time using the applications. Many users just find it easier to add a graphic to their profile using something like the "Bumper Stickers" app rather than leaving and finding a graphics site. The more the user is bored, the more traffic we get - it's common sense. Unfortunately, those applications took away that boredom that MySpace users used to have.

4) MSPLinks
For those of you who don't know, MSPLinks is the redirecting system MySpace placed to stop spamming. Many resource sites get the warning page when their link is clicked on, and half the users just close the warning page instead of following the link. And even those who are whitelisted suffer the consequences as well, since every now and again the msplinks system is down or extremely slow.

5) MySpace Themes
Why go to a resource site when MySpace has their own themes? Believe it or not, many users actually do use those boring old themes that MySpace offers.

6) Lack of Monetization
Currently, it is nearly impossible to monetize a MySpace Resource Site. For example, Ad companies such as Tribalfusion, Casale, and now Valueclick will not even consider a MySpace Resource Site due to low quality traffic. Even Google has been known to "Smart Price" MySpace Resource sites.

These are my reasons... If you have more feel free to post your thoughts... I just hope the guys over at MySpace do something to get their traffic and visitors back.

[Sugarlipz]

Nothing to add. You summed it up perfectly.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Sugarlipz

Nothing to add. You summed it up perfectly.

Ditto.

Any suggestions for a new niche? haha

[barcodeunit]

i seriously think we all should stop making profile 2.0 layouts.

[SlickEddie]

Originally Posted by barcodeunit

i seriously think we all should stop making profile 2.0 layouts.

that only delays the inevitable.

[Connections]

Myspace will still get traffic,

Site owners just need to allow for multiple streams of content on their sites.

Content that is used for

Friendster, Bebo, twitter

and what ever other social networking sites are out their.

Also targeting the images niche is another area all ways in strong demand by users looking for content.

I think that people seem to think they can make a sites only with myspace content in todays market and be successful, well it probly wont be you need to cater for alot of different things, draw in traffic from every where.

[Deemz]

Originally Posted by Connections

Myspace will still get traffic,

Site owners just need to allow for multiple streams of content on their sites.

Content that is used for

Friendster, Bebo, twitter

and what ever other social networking sites are out their.

Also targeting the images niche is another area all ways in strong demand by users looking for content.

I think that people seem to think they can make a sites only with myspace content in todays market and be successful, well it probly wont be you need to cater for alot of different things, draw in traffic from every where.

exactly what i was thinking

[barcodeunit]

Originally Posted by Connections

Myspace will still get traffic,

Site owners just need to allow for multiple streams of content on their sites.

Content that is used for

Friendster, Bebo, twitter

and what ever other social networking sites are out their.

Also targeting the images niche is another area all ways in strong demand by users looking for content.

I think that people seem to think they can make a sites only with myspace content in todays market and be successful, well it probly wont be you need to cater for alot of different things, draw in traffic from every where.

good luck drawing traffic from friendster. the traffic is all from the phillipines. its complete garbage at 0.01 CPM.

bebo? yeah right. good luck getting any traffic from facebook or twitter. the only way to monetize off facebook is the apps.

[barcodeunit]

profile 2.0 is the second to last nail in the coffin......

[Sugarlipz]

I get traffic from other networks, little known ones. Whenever I get a hit from one I never heard of, I add it to my tags.