Only a several years ago, people Googled and went to message boards to hang out. And, then the next big thing on the Internet was blogging. So, in the past couple of years social networking has been hot, very hot. But, has social networking hit its peak?

Myspace, Facebook, Digg, Linkedin and the list goes on and on. Millions of people are now interacting online through these mediums. But, according to a recent article in WebProNews there is a dark cloud.

Traffic to Myspace and Facebook dropped a month ago. A company called eMarketer has revised its forecast on how many advertising dollars will be spent on social networking sites in the near future and the number is down $390 million over past projections.

Part of the problem according to eMarketer is that companies and marketing types don’t know how to advertise on social networking sites yet. It’s still pretty hit and miss. Just ask a few bloggers and webmasters who go to social media sites for link-building and they’ll tell you that the quality of traffic isn’t as good as some other methods.

With gasoline prices at all time highs and talk of peak oil in the news, it’s also possible that social networking sites have hit there peak as well. Twitter this, Bebo that, there is only so much time in the day to first be social and second split among the glut of social sites that have sprung up.

But, one thing hasn’t happened that would indicate a peak. And that one thing is mergers among the big players in the market. Imaging a Myspace that Twittered or a Facebook that could Digg.

Who knows? In a year or two we may just see this happen.

Filed under: Social Media