Nielsen just released numbers for on the biggest and the fastest-growing social media sites.

The biggest social network is MySpace followed by Facebook. Other sites in the top 10 social networks include

-          Classmates Online
-          LinkedIn
-          Windows Live Spaces
-          Reunion.com
-          Club Penguin
-          Tagged;

Their ranking of fastest-growing social sites is a little more interesting. Twitter is on the top and they argue that this is fueled by loads of press and coverage of the presidential election. Ning on the other hand is a service for creating communities which only highlights the value of viral loops and the growth of special groups and niche communities.

Ning particularly has a unique “user driven” advertising model. Basically your community subscribes to a premium feature which allows you to “control the ads" for fee of USD 20/month. Ning then places the appropriate ads on your site at a premium USD 30 CPM vs. your average MySpace ad of USD 3 CPM.

Bomeiti is a unique adnetwork providing exactly this same feature except across multiple social networking sites in China and without the subscription charge. The individual users on the various networks select their categories of interest enabling advertisers to target key profiles and demographics. 

Other interesting fastest growing sites included Tagged which is most popular with the 35-49 age demographic, Multiply a social network for the non geek set who partnered with Microsoft to absorb the MSN Groups service, Reunion.com who counts the 55-64 age demographic as its biggest.

To say that I was surprised is somewhat of an understatement, “gobsmacked” might be a better description.
 
Today I read that Australia is planning to introduce mandatory internet filter with the intention of blocking all child pornography sites and they have also decided to throw in sites that give “tips” on euthanasia or others that “glorify” anorexia for good measure. It’s a wonderful ambition to rid the world of some sites however it’s a dangerous game.
 
Now I’ve seen programmes about some of the anorexic sites and it turns my stomach that people are really encouraging others to get into starving themselves and that they are really unwell enough to think that it is attractive or healthy. However, I am aware that that is MY opinion, as is the fact that I think that most of these people need serious help. Most countries and most courts can’t agree on whether the individual can make these kind of decisions or not so who the heck got to decide that this kind of censorship was acceptable.
 
As a parent I can understand the desire to protect ones children from bad influences but at end of the day your kids are going to do what they are going to do and you have to hope that you have give them enough support and guidance that when they make mistakes that they will find a way through it.
 
Go down this route and we’re going to be censoring all conversations kids have because where do they learn this stuff anyway, ban certain reading materials etc.
 
Slippery slope, Australia, slippery slope.