Marketing Worth of Social Networks

I was just reading the TechCrunchs Post today on the value of Social Networks. They have used advertising spend as the criteria for measuring the effectiveness of Social Networks. Not going into the actual ranking but the post set me thinking at the problem. Yes what good is a social ntwork without a revenue model. So if marketers are being served their dues then things are good. But it also set me thinking, what makes people think that there cant be Niche Social Networks with subscription based revenues and premium hosted services which will distinguish it from all the other Social Networks.

Myspace and Facebook emerged as the biggest networks as expected. With Hi5 and Bebo also figuring in the list.

Geographically UK is the most lucrative market followed by Australia, Denmark and USA is at fourth spot.