To generate new revenues in the future, IDC expects that most
social network services will employ a mix of business models, including
advertising, subscriptions, and ecommerce. Of these three models, only
advertising scales well enough to make social networks interesting for portals
and major media companies. So far, however, little advertising can be found on
social networks. And while the issues underlying slow ad sales may eventually
be solved, some services may never be able to attract brand advertisers on a
large scale.
