2nd-generation social networking

We're now moving from Web 2.0 to social networking 2.0. It looks to me like the 2nd generation of social sites has two categories: 1) niche ones, such as Takkle.com for high school sports fans and WAYN.com for travelers, and 2) hybrids that are either combinations of game/virtual world and the "old" kind of social site or what I'd call extreme social-networking, such as Xuqa.com. Forbes makes Xuqa sound like the popularity contest some teens make of MySpace on steroids. It also adds incentives for sticking around. In Xuqa, "users compete for popularity points by accumulating virtual kisses and hugs, winning poker games, spending 'peanuts', and even filling out surveys and looking at ads, all to attain status levels," Forbes reports. The other kind of 2nd-gen social site that may now be seeing its market kick in (in the US) is represented by Cyworld (South Korea-based, launched in the US last summer) and Finland-based Habbo Hotel (with a presence in 29 countries), both of which not only have "spaces" or rooms users can decorate but avatars to "live" in them. They're part game, part social site. Cyworld has its own economy too, with "acorns" for currency like Xuqa's "peanuts." Then there's Bix.com, which – judging by Forbes's description, mixes socializing and performing kind of like karaoke does but on a very public scale, like massively multiplayer karaoke or something. It too is a contest with prizes. For a sweeping view of social Web past and present, here's Internet News's backgrounder.