Experimental future for social media marketing

Social networks are likely to continue to experiment until a "viable model" which allows them to make money is created, one commentator has speculated.

Tim Houghton, managing director of New Media Intelligence, said that as yet, social networks had not yet been able to generate substantial revenue and that this would be the challenge over the coming months and years.

"We're at the stage with social networking where we were with Google before they developed AdSense - you've got a great service, people love it, but you haven't figured out how to make money from it," he explained.

On the topic of Google, Mr Houghton explained that previously there had been no business model, it was just a "great" search engine and that social networking sites were currently at a similar stage.

The recent Global Faces and Networked Places report from Nielsen revealed that member communities are growing twice as fast as any of the other four largest sectors - search, portals, PC software and email - which may highlight the value of social media marketing.

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