Has LinkedIn peaked already?

Few businesses last very long these days. In the Online Social Networking space a number have been and gone - Tribe, Friendster, Ryze, were all strong for a period of time. AOL, with AIM pages, missed the opportunity. Orkut waited too long. Bebo became a geographically limited one, as are so many of the foreign language ones. At the start of the year, MySpace and LinkedIn seemed unassailable, with FaceBook in a very secure niche.

Now, increasingly, in a world where change is critical, LinkedIn seems static, and even boring,while FaceBook has acquired more adult users and allows them to have a window into the life of the people to whom they link. The acceptance of third party Widgets is allowing them to avoid the mistakes which others have made. No one company can develop all the cool widgets which people want, so by opening up the environment, it can ensure that it always stays at the leading edge.

It may not last, but FaceBook has the best strategy for now.