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Another report from CNET poses the question

Social networks–future portal or fad?

Here’s what I think:

The MySpaces and Facebooks of the Internet have their market - teens and college students. While this is a great market to have, it also poses some problems as the market grows up. As the youngsters get into college, then careers, they have less and less time to spend on the Internet attracting new Internet friends. They move on – into real life with real relationships.

New sites, recently branded as Family 2.0 (http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-6079271.html) go beyond the trendy friendship sites by building networks around what the adult population cares about. As we get older we long for connections with family members and long time friends. The Internet, and Web 2.0 most recently, is great at enabling the sharing of stories, thoughts, interests, photos, movies, baby advice, etc. Sites like Amiglia.com, Minti.com, Cingo.com, Roundbook.com, OurStory.com, etc are heading in this direction.

Of course, I’m partial to Roundbook.com since I created it. But all of these sites have what fad networking sites will not be able to maintain - sharing based on real relationships.

Profitability comes into play here too. Relying on ad dollars may work if the site has a large enough user base, but families are willing to pay for premium content that allows the sharing of large movie files, storage of photos that grandma can download and print at full quality, family history archiving, etc.